The Girl with the Soft Sound
by thekindofbroken
Summary: "If there's such a thing as fallen angels, he's pretty sure Lydia Martin is one. She's all soft skin and bright eyes and hurt. The first time he'd seen her, and the first of many, many times she took his breath away, he'd looked at her, with her strawberry blonde hair caught in the wind and her green eyes singing pain, and he'd seen." AU: nothing supernatural
1. Chapter 1

"_**A soft sound,"**_

There are rules to being popular. Lydia Martin is very aware of this and very good at following them. There are also rules to avoiding pain and heartbreak. She's aware and fantastic at following these too. Lydia likes rules. They keep her firmly at her place, at the top of the Beacon Hills High School food chain. She likes that life is really just a big mess of math and science. If you figure out the way the world works, the way that _people_ work, all you have to do is pull the strings, add up the numbers, and boom, you've got the world at your feet.

Of course, all this is a lot of work. Lydia Martin is nothing, if not a hard worker. And it takes cunning, because the only way to control people, is to never, ever let them know how to control you. So the Lydia Martin that struts down the hallways with perfect hair and short skirts and her chin up isn't a real person. And the Lydia Martin who never raises her hand in class and never uses big words, and never, ever lets the most popular boy in school know she thinks he's a moron, doesn't exist either. But no one will ever know.

Sometimes, when she sees girls walking the halls of her high school with bad hair cuts and their heads down and clothes two sizes too big, she thinks she should publish a book. But then, if she did, the rules would become useless anyway, shifting into something else. After all, not everyone can be popular; that's what makes it so appealing.

So when Lydia steps out of her car at precisely 7:50 am on Monday morning, she already knows who she's going to talk to and who she's going to strategically ignore and what girls she's going to compliment on their clothes (whatever they happen to be wearing) and which boys she's going to smile at in the hallway and which ones she's going to pass by. She knows exactly how many confused looks she's going to give Allison in math class and precisely which words she will use to stroke Jackson's ego to start to smooth over his bad mood from the day before. And by the time she goes home tonight, she'll have everything planned for tomorrow.

Or so she thinks.

Considering Lydia Martin doesn't know who Stiles Stilinski is, never mind they've been in school together since third grade, she has no way to plan for the fact that he's going to come crashing into her life. And she has no way to know that Stiles can't follow the rules to save his life. And she can't possibly know that he's going to smash her world to pieces.


	2. Chapter 2

"_**to the way that she wears her hair down, covering up her face."**_

If there's such a thing as fallen angels, he's pretty sure Lydia Martin is one. She's all soft skin and bright eyes and _hurt_. That's how he knows her. That's how he's always known her. The first time he'd seen her, and the first of many, many times she took his breath away, he'd looked at her, with her strawberry blonde hair caught in the wind and her green eyes singing pain, and he'd _seen_. There are just some people in the world that are born with pain and Lydia Martin is one of them. Stiles isn't.

He feels pain for things that happen, for his mother, for the disappointment in his father's eyes, for the look on Scott's face when someone mentions his father, and always, _always_ for Lydia. He doesn't carry it like a sliver of ice in his chest, but she does. She can flash perfect smiles and destroy people with a word, but she can't stop him from seeing her.

They called it a crush. His father, the teachers, everyone. He has never once bothered to contradict them. They wouldn't understand. They don't hear what he does when she speaks, the way her voice is always like shattering glass and white hot falling stars. They don't see how she's all pieces, the most beautiful puzzle in the world. They don't know. But he does and he might not be special and he might not be handsome, or any of the things that fairytales say a hero should be, but he can see her, right down to the core, and he thinks, if she'd ever let him, he could sort some of the pieces out. That's who he is, the one who sees, the one who figures things out.

But people like her don't look twice at people like him, much less let them anywhere close to their hearts. People like her spin fabulous, beautiful lies and people like her blaze brightly and draw the rest of the world in and then burn it all to a crisp.

Still, he must be a glutton for punishment, because he tries. He never stops seeing her, the real her, not the carefully constructed facade, and he never stops trying. But for all his looking, it's as if he's turned invisible and she never looks back. So on the day that he turns around and finds her sitting calmly at his lab table, he thinks he must be dreaming. She can't really be there, because if there's one things he's learned in all these years of trying and looking and _seeing_, it's that fallen angels don't consort with mortals like him.


	3. Chapter 3

"_**And, oh, what a let down."**_

If she weren't in a major fight with Jackson, she wouldn't be caught dead sitting at a lab table in Chemistry by herself. But anything is preferable than sitting next to a fuming Jackson while she does _all_ the work, as usual (and somehow he's still buys that she's dumb). That is, until fifteen minutes _after _the bell rings and the door bursts open and 147 pounds of pale flesh and fragile bone tumbles into the room, gasping. And, of course, her table is the only one left open, which makes him her lab partner.

He has a short, hushed conversation with the teacher that involves a lot of wild hand gestures and eye rolling on his part and a lot of scowling on their teacher's. The boy must at least partially get his way, because their teacher stomps over to the computer and begins to tap away furiously, grumbling slightly under his breath.

The boy turns towards the class. He does a double take when he sees who he's about to be sitting next to. Well, she would expect nothing less. It's probably the best thing that's happened to him in years. He trips over his feet on the way to his seat and Lydia tries, in vain, to come up with a name to match his vaguely familiar face. Does she know him? Something with an S, right? He sits down, glances at her, away, and back. There's a mix of awe and adoration on his face.

"Is this a joke?"

"Excuse me?" she asks.

"Like, you haven't so much as looked at me, much less acknowledged my presence, since we were like 9 years old and now you're sitting at my table."

She shrugs, secretly wondering if they've actually "known" each other for that long.

"I didn't know that this was your table."

"Oh." His brow furrows and she thinks he's going to stop there, but he doesn't. "Right, why on earth would you know that? I've only been sitting here for the past 12 weeks," he mutters.

She feels her eyebrows lift, opens her mouth to respond snappily, but it cut off by the teacher, who's returned to the front of the room.

"Well, I hope you're all comfortable." The teacher shoots the boy, who is currently chewing on his pen cap and glaring back, an annoyed glance. "Or I suggest you get used to it, because these seats determine your lab partners for the final project, which will span the rest of the semester."

Fucking fantastic. Just her luck.

The teacher begins passing out papers. He pauses at their table, handing the boy the papers.

"If you're late one more time, Mr. Stilinski, it'll be a trip to the principal's office for you."

"Like that's a first," the boy mutters under his breath, passing Lydia a paper. The teacher moves away.

"It's Stiles."

"What?" Lydia asks. What the hell is a stiles?

"My name."

"Your parents named you Stiles Stilinski?" God, it's like they didn't even try to give him a chance in life.

"It's a nickname. I'm named after my mom's dad, and it's a Polish nightmare." Stiles smiles cheekily.

"Are you sure your mother loves you?" she asks, acidly. Internally, she's biting back her own smile.

His grin disappears immediately. "Uh." He rubs the back of his neck. "She kinda... I mean, my mom died when I was 9."

"Oh." Lydia feels a blush rise on her cheeks. God, she hates things like this. She knows all about people being touchy about their parents, that's Jackson in a nutshell. She expects harsh words from him now and she braces herself. "Sorry."

"It's not your fault." His face is surprising mix of confusion and gentleness. "You didn't know." Like that's ever stopped Jackson from blaming her for things.

"Yeah." It's weird, the way he's looking at her now, unfamiliar, and she doesn't understand it because no one's ever looked at her like that. "We should start working on the project."

"Okay." He's much more still than he was when he first entered the room. He skims the guidelines and groans.

"This is gonna take forever."

Lydia glances at her own paper. He's not entirely wrong.

As the class progresses, she struggles to concentrate on the work, which is unusual for her, but she can't shake that look in his eyes. It's not until the bell rings and he's stumbling over his feet and blushing profusely as he says, "see you tomorrow," that she realizes what that look was.

Understanding.


	4. Chapter 4

"_**And I don't seem to be having any effect now, falling all over the place."**_

Actually talking to Lydia Martin is a bit like being slapped in the face. There's always been a safe distance between them, enough that he has room to breathe and think and see and not get burned. But not anymore. He can't say he was exactly ready for it.

Up close, she's more beautiful and more painful. There's something, some instinct inside of him, that makes him want to reach out and soothe that hurt, whatever it is inside her that makes all her edges too sharp, but life isn't that simple, and he doesn't.

Talking to Lydia, sitting next to Lydia, occupying the same space and more importantly, her attention, is something that is entirely unfamiliar to him, and no matter how well he sees her, he doesn't know how to handle it. Because he sees Lydia, he _understands_ her, but he doesn't know her. That's the simple fact.

She's more fantasy than reality to him. In all the years he's spent wishing for her, perhaps, just _perhaps_, he's lost track of the fact that he doesn't actually know her. He doesn't know her favorite color, or what foods she likes, what movies she tells people are her favorites and which ones she watches when she's home alone. He doesn't know. They aren't friends.

But he wants to. He wants to know her the way he wants to breathe. Wanting to know her is pure, basic instinct. She's got a sharp tongue and eyes that make him feel flattened, but slowly, in just the course of the hour long class, he's starting to adapt to it, doing what he does best, figuring things out. In his mind, he'd always be the guy who she doesn't expect because he's got a stockpile of gentle words and soft looks, but if he's _that_ guy, he's pretty sure she's going to tear him apart.

She doesn't need his compliments or his admiration. She has that from the entire school and she _expects_ it. If Stiles can give Lydia anything, if he's ever going to break in past the sharp, sleek, false exterior, he has to give her the one thing she _doesn't_ expect. His honesty.

Easier said than done, but he's going to work on it. He may not be off the best start as he trips over his feet and mutters goodbye for the day and retreats. But hey, sometimes the best course of action is regroup, and that's exactly what he plans on doing.

"So, I'm working on a Chem project with Lydia," Stiles tries to sound casual as he divulges this bit of information to Scott over lunch. He suspects he hasn't succeeded when Scott chokes so badly that Stiles has to thump him on the back.

"Are you okay?"  
>"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. <em>Lydia?<em>" Scott asks.

"Yeah, I mean, we were assigned by seating arrangements and I was late and she was sitting by herself... huh, I wonder why she was sitting by herself? She must have had a fight with Jackson, if he's done anything that-"

"-Stiles, focus."

"Right, sorry. Anyway, she was sitting at _my_ lab table and, I mean, she didn't _know_ it was my lab table, but she was sitting there, so now we're lab partners."

"That's great!" Scott's still wiping away tears from his coughing fit. "That is great, right?"

"Yeah." Stiles lets his mind drift back to class. "But I don't exactly know how to handle her. It's going to be a learning process, I think."

"Hey, that's what school's all about!" Scott jokes, shoveling some soggy looking pasta into his mouth, just as Isaac sits down at the table.

"Cora says that Derek called and he's got a lead on the guy from Philly."

Stiles perks up at the information. Admittedly, the fact that the hobby he and his friends have developed involves snooping on his dad's police scanner and trying to put the pieces of Beacon Hills' crimes together themselves is a little bit weird and a lot illegal, but it's never boring. Okay, that's a lie. It's boring sometimes, and those things somehow tend to become Stiles job, as Scott isn't the best critical thinker and Isaac always seems mysteriously absent and Cora and Derek (two peas in a pod) have never heard of the word patience.

But it doesn't matter, because trying to solve crimes is infinitely more interesting than school work and he and his friends are actually pretty good at it. The hardest part is usually cluing the police in without giving away the fact that they've been investigating in the first place.

It had started as a game, something Stiles had come up with to cheer Scott up and keep him busy when his dad had walked out. And then they'd met Derek, who's brooding and serious and a few years older and was already doing something similar on his own and, somehow, a team had kind of formed, Derek, his younger sister Cora, Stiles, Scott, and most recently, Isaac, who Scott had befriended when he moved to Beacon Hills a couple of months ago. It's probably not what most high school students spend their weekends and evenings doing, but Stiles loves the challenge and he's not giving it up until he gets arrested for tampering with an investigation (which has been close a couple of times) and probably not even then.

"Does he want us to come to the club tonight?" Stiles asks. Derek owns a nightclub which the group uses as headquarters and, when they're not working, purely for fun.

Isaac shakes his head. "On Wednesday. He has some stuff he wants to follow up first."

"Okay." Stiles takes a bite of his sandwich and lets his mind wander. Crime and Lydia Martin all in one day. What more could a boy ask for?


	5. Chapter 5

"_**And you're losing your words."**_

She doesn't see Stiles Stilinski again until their next Chem class. Not that she looks for him. She has a lot on her plate and, even though she's found her mind occasionally wandering to the clumsy boy who she'd looked at and seen understanding looking back, he is nowhere close to the surface of her thoughts.

Things with Jackson have progressed from bad to worse. He's always been wound tight, and Lydia understands what drives him, because he has to be the best at everything, to _prove_ his worth. She gets that. She has a little of that in herself. But these days, Jackson is _scaring_ her, and Lydia Martin is not easily scared. He's always been aggressive. It's what makes him so effective on the lacrosse field. In some ways, it was something that had attracted her to him. His social status had topped the list, but Lydia's always liked her boys a little on the aggressive side, bordering on dangerous. But just today, Jackson had gone off on her in the hallway, called her worthless and stupid and blamed her for everything going wrong in his life and then he'd pushed her back against the wall in anger and she can already feel the bruises blossoming on her shoulders.

And then there's Allison. She and Allison are best friends, but Lydia has never been honest with her, not really. Allison had only moved to Beacon Hills over the summer and Lydia had met her at the beginning of the school year. Even though they had become fast friends, Allison sees what everyone else sees and, even though Lydia is infinitely grateful that Allison is a kind enough person to genuinely care about the Lydia Martin that she projects, it's hard to be best friends with someone when that person is friends with a lie. And it's hard to have real discussions when she's playing a part, so being with Allison, especially lately, has been more of a stress than a relief.

If that weren't enough, her mom's been increasingly absent. Lydia has always had a lot of freedom in her house. Her father left before she can even remember him being there and her mother spent most of her free time drowning her sorrows in a string of men and occasionally alcohol. Not that Lydia doesn't love her mom, she does, but there had never been anyone to confess secrets to, so she'd learned to keep them to herself at a young age. And now that she's old enough to be left at home alone, Lydia sometimes goes weeks without seeing her mother.

So, with the rest of her life swirling around her, Stiles Stilinski is really no more than an occasional passing thought. That is, until she walks into Chem class and remembers that he's supposed to be there and he isn't. She walks over to his table, she has to think of it as his, because she'd only sat there the one time and if they hadn't been paired together, she probably never would have sat there again, but she's actually _relieved_, because it means she doesn't have to sit next to Jackson and with the ache in her shoulders, she doesn't want to be anywhere near him.

She doesn't expect to wonder where Stiles is. Only she does. Why was he late last class, anyway? And sure enough, about ten minutes into class, he bursts through the door, breathing heavily and making excuses. The teacher, today, isn't having it, and by the time Stiles slides into his seat next to her, he's holding a detention slip and glaring at the teacher.

"Why are you really late?" Because she's sure whatever excuse he'd tried to use, it isn't the truth.

He looks over at her, eyebrows somewhere around his hairline, and she notices that his eyes are a kind of gorgeous honey color. Not that she cares. "What?"

"Why are you late?" she repeats slowly, like he actually didn't hear her the first time, even though she's sure he did.

"I have bad time management skills. And ADHD."

"Fabulous. I couldn't be more excited that we're sharing a grade on the final."

He winks at her. He actually fucking winks at her. Who is this guy? She almost says something, but he's no longer looking at her. He's dug a beat up spiral notebook out of his backpack and is apparently taking notes. Lydia is not used to being the one left hanging in a conversation. She seethes quietly to herself, but returns to her own meticulous notes (that she rarely looks at).

Her phone buzzes. One glance at it tells her it's Jackson and because he's sitting three rows behind her and had surely seen her look, she can't pretend like she didn't get it.

It says, _My place. After School._

Lydia grimaces, glad that Jackson can only see the back of her head. The last thing she wants to do is go over to his house, but he's Jackson Whittemore and he and Lydia together make perfect sense on paper and that's what people care about. She won't need him forever, just until she gets out of high school. And then he's gone. He may be hot shit at Beacon Hills High, but the moment she sets foot in college, she's trading up. Until then, however, it's best she tries to smooth things over.

"Not what you wanted to hear?"

Lydia jumps and turns to see that Stiles is looking at her. She hadn't realized her agitation was showing on her face. She wipes it away and types back to Jackson, _Okay_. She doesn't embellish. He doesn't deserve it.

"It's nothing."

"Does that nothing happen to use too much hair gel and like to throw around his parent's money?"

"_That's_ really none of your business." Lydia shoots him a venomous look, but he seems unaffected.

"I'm just-" He's cut off as the teacher's hand slams down on their lab station.

"Mr. Stilinski, are you trying for a week's worth of detention?"

Stiles opens his mouth, then closes it, and Lydia can see him physically hold back a sarcastic comment. "No, Sir."

"Then I suggest you pay attention to class, instead of hopelessly attempting to flirt with Ms. Martin."

Stiles turns very slightly pink and he grits his teeth, managing, "Yes, Sir."

Lydia might even feel bad for him, except he'd winked at her, and stuck his nose in her business, and was always late to class. Except for those things.

Stiles doesn't look at her again during the class. Not that she's checking. In fact, she thinks he's not going to look or speak to her at all for the day, until the bell rings and she's collecting her stuff and she looks up and finds him looking back. God, he's got that look in his eyes again, like he can see straight through her.

"Can I help you?" she asks.

"We need to figure out when we're working on this project."

Oh. For some reason, it hadn't been what she was expecting. "Fine, you can come over after school."

"Not today." He waves the detention slip at her. "I'm stuck here until five and then I have practice."

"Practice?"

"I'm on the lacrosse team." He was?

"You are?" She's never noticed him and Jackson insists she attends practice at least several times a week.

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, I am."

"Okay." She remembers she's supposed to go to Jackson's anyway. "What about tomorrow? 4 pm?"

"Alright." He shoulders his backpack and turns to walk away.

"Don't you need my address?" she says to his back.

He half turns to look at her. "I know where you live."

"Excuse me?" That had to be in the top 10 creepiest things a guy has ever said to her and she's had quite a few creeps hang around.

"I was at your birthday party in third grade." He's so... matter of fact, no smile, no amusement in his eyes, he just looks tired.

"And you remember where my house is?"

He sighs massively. "It's like four blocks from mine. It's not that weird. But if it makes you feel better, yes, please, give me your address." There's annoyance blossoming in his voice and she's not sure why he transitioned from the mood where he winks and makes rude comments about Jackson to this, but she doesn't like it.

"No, fine. I'll see you at four tomorrow." She picks up her bag and stalks past him, only now aware that they were the only two people left in the room. She doesn't look back to see if he's following her.


	6. Chapter 6

"_**We're speaking in bodies."**_

It takes him a full five minutes of craning his neck and squinting through the crowd to confirm that Lydia is indeed sitting at the bar across the dance floor in Derek's club. He's gotten so used to imagining her presence, and she's been on his mind a lot lately considering they're actually _speaking_, that he doubts his own eyes when he sees her. But she's there, sipping a drink and smiling at a guy who definitely qualifies as tall, dark, and handsome. If Jackson wasn't such an asshole, Stiles might feel very vaguely bad for him. But Jackson is an asshole. And Lydia's just talking, even if the way she's got her body angled towards the guy could be interpreted as inviting.

"Stiles." Scott slides into the seat next to him at the high topped table.

"Hey." He glances at his best friend, then back at Lydia, who's now laughing (fake laughing, really).

"Is Isaac here yet?"

"Not that I know of."

"And Cora?"

"Nope." Stiles tears his eyes away from Lydia, she's not the reason he's here, and swivels slightly in his seat to focus on Scott.

"Derek said he'll be over in a minute and then we'll all go up to the loft so he can brief us on what he's figured out. Cora could be up there already."

"Right." Scott is squinting at something past Stiles. "Is that Lydia dancing?"

Stiles turns his head and, sure enough, Lydia and her mystery man have made their way out onto the dance floor. He quickly looks away. He has had the misfortune of having to watch Lydia dance with other guys before, he'd rather not repeat the experience. All it does is make his chest hurt.

"Yep."

"Are you gonna say hi?"

"Nope."

"Wow. One word answers. You must really not want to talk about it." Scott gives him a look that's somewhere between sympathetic and amused, if that's even possible.

"She doesn't want me to say hi, Scott," Stiles sighs. "I'm just the guy she happened to get assigned to work on the Chem final with. That's all."

"Harsh."

"_Honest_." Stiles runs a hand through his hair. "If I ever even hope to have a chance with Lydia, I have to be honest, with both of us."

Scott opens his mouth to say something, but at that moment Isaac flops down at the table, holding a beer. "Derek around?"

"He'll be over in a minute," Stiles replies, rather glad to have the conversation cut short. He knows Scott means well, but there are things that Stiles would rather keep to himself and conversations he doesn't really want to have.

Sure enough, three minutes later, Derek appears quietly at the table and motions for the boys to follow him towards the loft. Stiles hops up, stretching, and casts one last look back at the crowd, just catching sight of a flash of strawberry-blonde hair and then he tries to push Lydia Martin out his brain and put his detective face on. It's time to go to work.


	7. Chapter 7

"_**Avoiding me, and talking about you."**_

She spends an inordinate amount of time on her knees, either leaning over toilet bowls from one too many, or sucking Jackson off. But she's good with a make up brush and bruised knees aren't that hard to cover up. It's not that she's ashamed of how she ended up with them, but rather that it would just be sloppy to let them show. Of course, it's a different story when, after having been caught in the rain, she stumbles into her house, cursing, and finds Stiles sitting on her stairs. No one on the face of the planet should see her like this, drenched, ruffled, and freezing, even someone as unimportant in the scheme of things as Stiles. He stands up.

"What are you doing here? How did you get in?"

"Your mom let me in. She said I could wait in your room, but..." He trails off. Of course he'd be the sort of boy who isn't comfortable in a girls room by himself.

Lydia ignores his awkwardness. "Is she here?"

"Not anymore. She left half an hour ago."

She raises her eyebrows. "How long have you been here?"

"You said 4."

She had. But she'd only said that because she'd assumed, from the way he stumbles into class after the bell, that he'd be late.

"Right." She's dripping water onto the hardwood floor. "Let's go upstairs."

He follows her slowly, but she doesn't care. Let him be bumbling and shy and sweet all he wants, as long as he's not too much of an idiot, she can handle it.

The moment she's through the door of her room, she sheds her coat, dropping it into her hamper and proceeds to strip down to her underwear. She hears a stuttered, "whoa," behind her and turns to find Stiles very pointedly looking anywhere, but at her.

"Should have known you were the shy type," she says bluntly, digging in her dresser for something to wear. She pauses, hand brushing over her favorite sweatpants. But she doesn't wear those where anyone can see her, even nobody's like Stiles.

"I'm not shy," he says, glancing quickly at her, blushing slightly, and diverting his eyes again. "It's called being respectful."

Lydia rolls her eyes. "You mean pretending to be respectful. If all you're doing is thinking about staring, you might as well go ahead and do it."

"Do you _want_ me to stare? You know, like everyone always does, because it makes you feel good about yourself?"

She turns to glare at him, but he misses it because he still isn't looking at her. "Don't try to psychoanalyze me. I didn't say I _wanted_ you to stare. I just don't care."

He does look at her then, but not in the way she's used to. There's something completely clear about the way he's looking at her, straight in the eyes and the thing is, there's something _different_ about him, from how he was around her just days ago, where he stumbled all over his words and looked at her with so much adoration. She doesn't see that now. His eyes flick down, over her once, but they don't linger. And then he says probably the last thing she expects.

"Your knees look like they hurt."

She feels her mouth open in surprise, but she doesn't know how to respond to that, so the first thing she can think of slips out. "_That's_ what you noticed?"

He shrugs. "You know you're beautiful. I doubt there's anything I could say that you haven't heard a hundred times on that front."

Beautiful. Funnily enough, it's not a word she's heard applied to her often. Hot. Sexy. Smokin'. Babe. Those she's used to, but beautiful? Not so much. She feels a little off kilter, her bitch mask slipping. She's good at people, she knows how to pull their strings and how they're going to dance, but apparently Stiles is _not_ like other boys. Or... Not anymore? Just two days ago, he'd been just like all the rest, overly infatuated, even.

"Are you going to put clothes on? It's not exactly a warm evening."

She realizes, much to her chagrin, that she's been staring at him for almost a minute. Oh, damn it all to hell, she grabs the sweatpants. Sweatpants, sweater, and hair up in a bun. _That's_ how little she cares if Stiles thinks she's beautiful.

"Better?" she asks acidly.

He ignores the question, crossing her room to sit down at her desk. "So, Chem. Got any ideas for the project?"

She _almost_ opens her mouth to answer him, detailing _exactly_ what they should do, before she stops herself. She's slipping. That's not how this works. She has to feed him the idea subtly. He has to think it was his. After all, the Lydia Martin that's going to be prom queen doesn't know a thing about chemistry.

"School's not really my thing," she says, tilting her head to the side and letting just the _slightest_ pout to come through. Better take it easy, she doesn't know how smart he is yet.

He snorts. He fucking snorts.

"What?" He voice is back to being sharp. There's something incredibly annoying about him.

"I'm not an idiot."

"I never said you were."

"Well, you must _think_ I am, if you think for one second that I would buy that crap. I know how smart you really are."

She feels her heart drop. There's no _way_ he could possibly know that. "What?" She tries to keep her voice light and confused.

"Lydia, we've gone to school together since third grade. You're a fucking genius. Just because you started pretending like you weren't in middle school, doesn't mean you aren't. Also, I hand back the papers in Chem class. I've seen your grades."

She takes back her earlier assessment. It would be better if he were an idiot.

"Just because we've gone to school together for a long time doesn't mean you know me. What are you, some sort of stalker?"

He gives her a hard look. "Lydia, I've had a crush on your since I was eight, if I didn't know you were smart, I'd _have_ to be an idiot."

She opens her mouth to snap back at him, but then his words sink in. "You... What?"

He shrugs, there's a slight blush rising up his cheeks, like maybe he'd said more than he intended. "Like that's news for you." His voice is quiet, just the slightest bit bitter. "Half the guys in our grade have been there at some point."

"I-"

"-How about we talk about the assignment? And no dumb bullshit."

"Fine." She crosses her arms across her chest, but really, it's a relief not to have to talk about his puppy crush on her. He doesn't know her and once he does, he'll get over it. He's sweet and soft and she's anything but. He'll figure that out soon enough.


	8. Chapter 8

"_**And you're losing your turn."**_

For once, things in her life seem to be going, dare she say it, smoothly. Jackson is still grumpy, yes, but she's managed to coax him into a slightly less volatile state for the past week or so. It helps that the lacrosse team has been winning. And Allison has been just the perfect amount of distracted to still be around, but not notice when Lydia slips up and says something that's too smart (which doesn't happen _that_ often, she is a fantastic actress). Plus, she's gotten used to the sarcastic comments that constantly issue from Stiles' mouth. It's become the background music to her studying and sometimes, _sometimes_, she can't stop an amused smile slipping through.

She knows he notices because he gets a very satisfied smirk every time and she glares at him until it goes away. She'd never, ever admit it to him, but she _likes_ working with Stiles. He's not just smart, he's _crazy_ smart and for the first time in her whole life, there's someone who can almost keep up with her. And for the first time in her whole life, she has a chance to show off her brain. A few times, she and Stiles have gotten into a rhythm of exchanging ideas so fast, she imagines it must look a ping pong match between them. He's still goofy and occasionally annoying and still looks a her with eyes that seem to see too much, but if she's being completely honest, there's a satisfied feeling that seeps all the way down to her bones on the nights that she studies with Stiles.

But studying with Stiles is one thing, being _friends_ with him is another. So they don't talk outside of class and when she sees him in the hallways, she lets her eyes slide right over him, and, often on the days after an evening of researching, bites back a smile. He doesn't bother to hide the way he looks at her, but she supposes it doesn't matter, a lot of boys stare. But the way he looks at her now, when it's not that deep understanding, is with a warm, familiarity that kind of makes her feel sick to her stomach. Because the truth of the matter is, even though she's only known him for a couple of weeks, Stiles knows her a lot better than she's willing to admit.

It turns out, he really _is_ on the lacrosse team, but she can't blame herself for not noticing, because he never really plays. Besides, all the boys look pretty much the same once they're in pads and helmets, barring extreme height differences. What does surprise her, is that Stiles' best friend, Scott McCall _does_ play. And he's good. Like, the sort of good that gets you made co-captain, which Lydia really hopes doesn't happen because it's sure to put Jackson in a terrible mood for weeks.

And tonight, sitting in the bleachers in the cold (she's sure her nose is turning pink, which she doesn't appreciate), Scott McCall becoming a captain is looking more and more likely. Allison links her arm with Lydia's, shivering a little.

"Who is that?" she asks, as Scott scores his third goal of the night.

"Scott McCall," Lydia answers, automatically.

"_Who_?" Allison raises her eyebrows at Lydia. Shit. Boys like Scott aren't generally on the Lydia Martin radar, but it would be hard for him _not_ to be, considering how much Stiles talks about him.

"Scott McCall. He's in our Government class?"

"Oh." Allison is still looking at Lydia a little oddly, but the excuse seems to do the trick. "He's cute."

"He is?" Lydia's genuinely surprised that he's Allison's type.

"Yeah," Allison turns a little pink. "He is."

Lydia shrugs and turns her attention back to the game and that's when she realizes that Stiles is running out onto the field. Oh God. If the other team doesn't destroy him, Jackson will. She's noticed Jackson has taken a very intense disliking to Stiles, not only due to being the best friend of Scott McCall, but also, it seems, that he's taken Stiles's Chemistry partnership with Lydia as a personal offense.

Luckily, Stile stays largely out of the way, most of the game. He'd been sent in to replace an injured player, a boy whose name Lydia doesn't know, and he hovers around the edges of things, avoiding the ball and injury at the same time. But then he doesn't have much of a choice, because somehow, the ball rolls directly to his feet. And maybe if the score wasn't tied, or if there weren't only a few seconds of time left in the game, she wouldn't have found herself standing up, but that's where she is, standing up, breath caught in her throat.

He stands there for an instant, staring down at the ball, and then, he scoops it up and he's running. He's got, somehow, a clear path to the goal, and in a matter of moments, he's frozen, paused feet away from the goal, as the rest of the players thunder after him. And everyone around her is screaming for him to shoot it, as he hesitates. And she can't fucking stand it, so she screams too.

"Shoot it!"

And then he does. And by some miracle, he scores. Lydia hardly knows what she's doing, only that he's turned around and even though he's a field away, she _knows_ he's looking at her, and she's pretty sure he heard her too. And she's clapping and she's _happy_ for him. Three seconds later, the buzzer to sound the end of the game goes off and the rest of the team rushes the field and Stiles is lost in a sea of congratulatory bodies.

"That was a great game," Allison says, starting to climb down the bleachers towards the field. Lydia follows more slowly, the elated feeling in her chest starting to sink. Jackson will be furious. And sure enough, she finds him storming towards the edge of the field.

"Congratulations," she says, trying to keep her tone happy. She already knows it won't work, that he won't be happy about this win, that he _can't_ be if he isn't the star, but she doesn't expect the amount of fury that he turns on her, grasping her arm so tightly she gasps and leaning in to growl at her.

"You don't cheer for _him_," Jackson snaps, before pushing her away, hard enough to make her stumble. She doesn't have to ask who he's talking about. Jackson stalks away from her and Lydia glances around to make sure no one had witnessed their argument. No one seems to be paying attention, except... of course he's the one who sees it, helmet off, honey gold eyes wide. He takes a step towards her, but she shakes her head and offers him a tiny smile. Stiles deserves to enjoy this night and she doesn't think she'll be able to stand it if he comes over here and looks at her with those eyes that know all her secrets.

She turns and heads for the parking lot. She thinks she hears him shout, "Lydia!" after her, but she doesn't turn back.


	9. Chapter 9

"_**I guess I'll never learn, because I stay another hour or two."**_

Bruises, swirling purple and blue, like paintings of far off galaxies on her skin. They could almost be beautiful. But he knows who put them there, and why, and they aren't beautiful. They weren't raised on her skin from hands that gripped in breathless passion. They weren't inked onto her body by hands that sought to are marks of anger, dark against the rest of her, which looks fragile compared to these furious stains. And no one should stain her. She might be a fallen angel, but she's still too sacred for anyone to tattoo anger into her skin.

They make his chest tight and he swallows his own fury. He knows who's marked her. But it doesn't matter. Because he's not allowed to comment. He's not even supposed to _see_. She catches him looking and her eyes go all sharp and fierce and she tugs the shoulder of her sweater back around her, hiding them from view. It doesn't matter. The bruises are burned on his brain, purple and blue, purple and blue.

Stiles tries to concentrate on taking notes, but all he can see is her bruises and he can physically feel the tempestuous force, sitting a few rows back, who put them there. Jackson Whittemore, like Lydia, was born with pain, but he's no angel, fallen or not. Stiles can see straight through him, too. Jackson is like a poison, and maybe it's not his fault, maybe he never could have been anyone else, Stiles doesn't know or particularly care, but he's never, ever going to be good for anyone around him. And he will never deserve Lydia. These are things that Stiles _knows_, like he knows his own name or that the sky is blue. He doesn't deserve Lydia and she doesn't deserve what he does to her.

"Stiles." Lydia is looking at him again, the edges in her eyes have softened to gentle points, rather than the blades, poised for battle, he'd seen moments before. "Forget about it."

He wishes he could. But he knows he never will. And she seems to know it too, because she looks away, lips pressed into a hard line. She hates that he's seen through her.

"I'm fine," she says softly, staring at her notes, refusing to meet his eyes. Sometimes that's the way it is with Lydia. If he can manage to keep his mouth shut, she'll tell him more than she means to. Does she really think it's _fine?_ Because it's not. Nothing she ever says can convince him that what a selfish, angry boy is doing to her is fine.

"And it's none of your business," she adds. He still hasn't said a word. He doesn't have to, though he's bursting with protests, with anger, with the urge to beg her to leave him, to leave behind the boy who presses blemishes on her skin. But she won't listen. He might as well shout his words to the sky for all the good they'll do. This is her battle to fight and she'll never, ever relinquish it to him. He prays she wins. So he swallows everything that's trying to crawl up his throat and out of his mouth and he changes the subject.

"Do you want to study at my place tonight?"

From the surprise in her eyes, she was expecting a fight from him. "I guess?" She's never been to his house, but he wants to take her there, to see her in his space, where she'll be less of a dream and more of something solid, something real.

"Great. My dad won't be home at all tonight, but we usually do take out anyway."

Lydia's facade is wavering and he's always trying to get her like this, to a place where he can break in to who she really is, what she really thinks. "Okay," she says softly.

The bell rings and he sees her flinch, caught off guard. She takes a deep breath and he can actually see her pull all her walls back up, sealing up the cracks he's tapped into over the past ten minutes. He wonders how no one else ever notices.

She shoots him a confident smile. "See you tonight, then." And she picks up her bag and strides across the room to where Jackson is standing, waiting for her at the door. He places a possessive hand on her back and Stiles feels his jaw go tight as the two of them disappear into the hallway.


	10. Chapter 10

"_**For crying out loud, settle down."**_

Lydia is lying on her stomach on his bed, ankles crossed, biting her lip, and glaring at her notebook, completely oblivious to Stiles, who's three feet away. He's sitting on the floor, using the edge of his bed as a backrest and there are notebooks and papers and pens and pencils strewn all around him. This stands out in sharp contrast to her one notebook and perfect notes. He's spent the last hour and half pointedly _not_ looking at the finger shaped bruises on her arm. She'd removed her sweater and they're right out there, standing out furiously on her skin, but he refuses to look at them. It'll only upset her if she catches him again. Besides, if he thought he could change her mind about Jackson, he would have done it ages ago.

The doorbell rings and, as if in response, Stiles stomach growls. "That's the food!" He hops up, cursing as he stumbles a little due to his tingling feet. Clearly, they haven't been taking enough breaks. Lydia doesn't seem to agree.

"Stiles, we can't eat now! We still have six pages of the process paper to write!"

"I have to get the food, the delivery boy isn't going to stand there forever."

"Yes, but you need to put it in the kitchen and we'll eat when we finish this paper," she says calmly. Stiles rolls his eyes. That's not gonna happen. He'll die of starvation if he doesn't eat something soon. Does she not understand that he's a growing teenage boy? So he doesn't confirm one way or the other before he bounds down the stairs to answer the door.

"Delivery for Stiles Stilinski?" The pizza boy looks incredibly bored.

"I love you," Stiles says, digging through his wallet and almost missing the shocked and slightly taken aback look on the boy's face.

"How much?"

"Th-Thirteen Twenty Five." The pizza boy is still looking at Stiles like he's worried he might jump him.

"Great." He hands the boy a ten and a five. "Keep the change." The boy hands him the pizza, looking relieved to leave. Stiles cracks the lid and inhales. It's pure heaven.

"You're my soulmate!" Stiles yells after the pizza boy, just for fun. He's mostly joking. Anyone who brings him pizza is incredible to him, even if he's getting paid for it.

Lydia is not amused when he reappears in his bedroom with the pizza in tow. She gives him a hard look.

"I told you we need to finish this first."

"I will die," Stiles says dramatically, dropping on the bed next to her. "Come on, Lydia, you know you want to." He opens the box and waves the pizza around in front of her. She glares at him.

"This is why it takes you ages to get anything done. You have no discipline."

"You're right." Stiles grabs a slice and takes a bite. "Discipline is _way_ overrated. You know what's not? _Pizza_."

Lydia rolls her eyes and growls, "fuck it," before slamming her notebook closed and sitting up. "You're a terrible influence."

"Mmmm, but I'm fun," Stiles manages between bites.

"_This_ is what you consider fun?"

"I _would_ be fun if you would ever do anything but study."

"That's the whole reason I'm here," Lydia counters. "To _study._"

"Well, that's your loss. You can't fairly judge my fun levels based on study sessions."

Lydia rolls her eyes again. "Sure, okay. You _could_ be fun."

"Ha!" Stiles points dramatically at her. "Did I just win an argument with Lydia Martin?"

"No." She adjusts the hemline of her top and takes a slice of pizza. "You _annoyed_ Lydia Martin enough that she decided you weren't worth even _beginning_ to argue with."

Stiles shrugs. "I'll take it."

A smile creeps over Lydia's lips. He loves that he's getting better and better at that, making Lydia smile. She smiles a lot at school, but she doesn't mean it. That's the smile she flashes around at anyone she thinks it might get her something from. This smile, the one that's resting on her lips now as she looks down at her lap and tries to conceal it, it's a _real_ smile and there's something soft and breathless and almost _shy_ about it.

The very first night they'd studied together, Stiles had admitted to his longstanding "crush" on her. It's not a crush, not really. It never was and _now_, right now, when he's here with the real Lydia Martin casually sitting on his bed and suppressing a smile (not very well), crush isn't even in the same hemisphere as the proper word for it. Getting to know her has changed it and it runs deeper than it ever did before.

And she knows. He's aware she _knows_. He hasn't brought it up again and neither has she, but he can see it reflected back in her eyes sometimes, that she's seeing how he feels about her on his face, or in the way he listens to her, or in what he doesn't say. It's scary, but he's not ashamed of it. How could he ever be ashamed of how he feels about her? He _wants_ her to know. He's never expected anything back.

So sometimes, when he catches her looking at him, really looking at him, and seeing something other than his exterior or his feelings for her, he almost can't believe it. Because to really see the truth of a person, you have to actually be looking for it. And he's seen Lydia trying to find the truth of him. She's starting to see him just the way he can see her. He doesn't know what this means, only that, as far as he knows, no one's ever done that to him before.


	11. Chapter 11

"_**You know I can't be found with you."**_

After three nights of cramming for the Chemistry exam on Friday (which technically they don't _have_ to do together, since everyone takes their own exam, but hey, it's _nice_ to have someone to prepare with), Lydia is starting to get a headache. Lydia doesn't usually study much for tests, but Stiles is so easily distracted, that they spend a large portion of the time on witty banter and fake arguments.

Stiles flops back furiously onto his bed, hands going to his face and an annoyed groan comes out muffled. "I can't. I'm sorry. If you try to make me read another word or hold up one more flashcard, I'm going to lose it."

Lydia rolls her eyes. "It's only been two hours."

"Two hours of _hell_," Stiles counters. He peeks at her between his fingers. "We can take a break, right? _Please_, Lyds?"

She swallows, surprised by his choice of words. "No one calls me that."

"Calls you what?" He clearly doesn't even know what he's said.

"Lyds."

"Oh." He blushes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to." He sits up, apologetic face on.

"No, I don't mind." She actually kind of likes the way the nickname had rolled off his tongue, so naturally. It's a different name for the different person she is around him, the real one. "My grandmother called me that sometimes. We were really close. Lyds was her favorite nickname for me, but then I insisted everyone call me Ariel for months."

"Ariel?"

"From _The Little Mermaid_, the book, not the movie. It was my favorite."

His eyes scrunch up in an incredibly adorable manner. "Doesn't she _die_ in the book?"

"Well, yeah... I mean, technically she dissolves into sea foam, but if she performs enough good deeds, eventually she earns a soul."

Stiles snorts. "Figures."

"What does?" She crosses her arms across her chest, feeling vulnerable. She's never told anyone about her obsession with Ariel before and she shouldn't have shared it with him. She's too used to speaking her mind around Stiles.

"That you'd go for realistic over romantic, even as a kid."

"So? I'm a realist." Experience has sucked the romantic bones right out of her body.

"Well, _I'm_ a romantic," Stiles says.

"Yes, and you probably get your heart broken every day." She says it before she has time to think and remember that _she's_ the one Stiles supposedly has a crush on. Her throat feels a little tight at the thought. She doesn't want to hurt Stiles.

He blinks at her and she swears the smile on his lips is the saddest one she's ever seen. "Every day," he repeats. Lydia gets caught up in his eyes, all soft and liquid and sad.

There's a knock on the door frame and Lydia flinches. She turns in the chair at his desk to see his father standing in the doorway. Lydia's never had a conversation with the Sheriff, but she knows him because he's practically a fixture in town. She wonders, briefly, how she's always known who he is, but she didn't know who Stiles was.

"Hey, boys-" the Sheriff blinks. "I thought Scott was here."

"Uh." Stiles hands are moving nervously. "No, Dad, Lydia's here to work on our Chem project."

"Lydia?" His father looks at her, surprise registering on her features. "Lydia Martin? The same Lydia Martin who-"

"-Yes, Dad!" Stiles practically yells, cutting his father off. As if Stiles crush on her hasn't already been brought up enough today.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Lydia," the Sheriff says. "I'm about to head to work, so I apologize for not being able to stay any longer." He gives Lydia a nod and then he heads out.

"I take it he's not home much?" It sounds like maybe Stiles knows a little something about absent parenting. She picks up her notebook, trying to remember what day the lecture had been on ionic bonds.

Stiles shrugs. "I mean, yeah, he works a lot, but we need the money, so it's not like I can blame him. He's a really good dad." He's picked up some red yarn from his nightstand, she has no idea why he has it, and is winding it around his fingers.

"Lucky," she says, flipping through the notebook. "I haven't seen _my_ dad since I was four and my mom is never home. If she is, she's with one of her two favorite things, younger men or wine."

"That sounds rough." And he says it like he means it, which is something she can't get enough of with Stiles; he listens, he understands, and he really genuinely _cares_.

"It's fine. After all, I'm a realist." But somehow, the hurt of all of it is rising to the top and she stares furiously down at her notes.

"Hey," she hears Stiles move, but she can't look at him, because if she looks at him and sees those eyes, she's gonna lose it.

"It's okay if it's _not_ okay, you know?" He sounds close, really close. He must be kneeling on the floor in front of her. His hands come into view and he takes the notebook and sets it on the desk next to her. And then she has no choice but to look at him.

"It won't matter one day," she says softly. "I'm gonna go to a really good college and I'll get a great job and I never have to come back to this town ever and I'll never have to pretend to be stupid or interested in the things that idiotic boys say, or anything like that again." He reaches out and takes her hands, slowly, gently. Part of her thinks she shouldn't let him. She and Stiles are... something, but so far, it has _not_ involved physical contact. Sure, she'd changed in front of him that first day studying, but she'd been cold, and annoyed, and she'd wanted to watch him squirm. But things are different now, because she cares about his feelings and the closer she lets him, the more likely she's going to hurt him. But his hands are gentle and so in contrast to Jackson's that she doesn't move an inch.

He winds the red yarn around her finger. "You're right. You're gonna do all those things, I'm sure. But Lyds, things that hurt you now, they still hurt, and it's okay to feel them."

He's looking up at her and God, those eyes. Her phone buzzes loudly and she slowly removes her hands from his. He lets her go, but she can feel his eyes on her, even as she turns away.


	12. Chapter 12

"_**We get back to my house,"**_

He can't believe this is actually happening. Somehow, some miraculous way, after _weeks_ of suggesting breaks, begging to do something other than study, Lydia is sitting on his sofa, munching on popcorn and watching _The Empire Strikes Back_. Okay, so maybe she'd made him study for _five_ hours first, but here they are, sitting on his sofa and watching his _favorite_ of the trilogy and she's (though he is 100% sure she hasn't realized it) actually fucking mouthing the words along with the actors. She's a _fan_, a huge, nerdy fan. And he finds this incredibly endearing.

She must sense his eyes on her because she turns her head to look at him. "_What?_"  
>"You're mouthing the words," he tells her, a giant grin spreading across his face.<p>

"I am not!"

"Yes you are!"

She crosses her arms across her chest, glaring at him. "You will not breathe a _word_ about this to anyone."

Stiles smiles brilliantly.

"And you can stop looking so smug."

He tries to bite back his smile. "I can't believe you love Star Wars."

"Any sane human being loves Star Wars," she snaps. "Some of us just know how to keep from looking lame and spreading that information everywhere."

"How did anyone even convince you to _watch_ Star Wars?"

Lydia bites her lip. "My dad gave me the box set when I was four."

"Oh." Lydia's dad walked out on her and her mom years ago and Stiles knows she doesn't like to talk about him. She almost never brings him up and Stiles does not feel that they are anywhere near close enough for him to do so. He thinks he might be teetering on the edge of what she'd consider a friend, but he's not sure she even realizes it.

"I loved that set, but then about a year later my VCR broke and ate the tape out of this one and you can't exactly have a boxed _set_ if you're missing _The Empire Strikes Back_." She smiles slightly. "My grandma got me a replacement copy for my birthday that year."

"Your grandma sounds like she was awesome," Stiles supplies, snagging some popcorn from the bowl Lydia's holding.

"She was. She was my best friend when I was little."

They lapse into comfortable silence, attention back on the film and Stiles finds himself incredibly relaxed, which is not something that he has been around Lydia very often. She's intense and the way he feels about her is intense and that doesn't make for a very relaxing atmosphere.

It's not until he's blinking his eyes open, because his phone is buzzing loudly next to his head, that he realizes he'd fallen asleep. And one glance to the other end of the sofa shows that Lydia has too. She's curled up into a small ball, head resting on the armrest and a blanket wrapped around her. She looks beautiful.

He should wake her up. She should probably go home. But his brain is moving slowly and his eyelids are heavy and Lydia Martin is only feet away and everything feels right with the world, so instead, he goes back to sleep. When he wakes up in the morning, Lydia is gone and he has no idea when she left.


	13. Chapter 13

"_**your hands, my mouth."**_

It's not until she's sitting in Chemistry, watching the door, waiting for Stiles to burst through (he's consistently between ten and fifteen minutes late. She'd pointed out if he was so consistent on how late he was, he could probably be consistently on time, which he'd waved away), and suppressing a smile at the thought of him, does it hit her that she and Stiles are _friends_.

At some point, she'd stopped forcing her eyes to slide over him in the hallways. Sometimes, she even gives him small smiles, which he always returns extra brightly. She's noticed that he and Scott are constantly together, more often than not, Stiles talking quickly, hands going wildly. There's a girl, too, a dark haired, pretty girl, who leans on Stiles locker between classes and, while she's generally rather sullen, she always seems to have a smile or two for him.

Today, Stiles is 12 minutes and 28 seconds late. There's something different about today. When he steps through the door, there's no rush, nothing to indicate that he's late at all. Usually, his eyes would find her the moment he opens the door and she'd give him a stern look and he'd grin cheekily. But today, he doesn't look at her, just moves smoothly (since when does he do anything smoothly?) up to the front of the room and takes the detention slip that the teacher is holding without protest. She has never, not once, seen him accept detention without a fight.

He still doesn't look at her when he sits down, unzipping his backpack and producing his notebook.

"Stiles?"

He glances over and his eyes look tired and a little dull.

"Are you okay?" She had intended to ask him what was going on, but the drawn lines of his face had changed the question on its way off her tongue.

"Long night," he says flatly, eyes back on his notebook.

"Stiles." She lays a hand on his arm. It's then that she realizes that, somehow, in the weeks she's been working with him, she's never initiated contact. His eyes go to her hand, then to her face and, this time, there's a little flicker of something there.

"I just have a terrible headache. And I haven't exactly been sleeping well lately and Scott and Cora and I were out late last night."

"Cora?" Who the hell is Cora and why hasn't Lydia ever heard of her? She and Stiles have been spending most afternoons together for _weeks_ and he never shuts up about Scott, but now he's close enough with some girl named Cora that she'd kept him out late?

"Cora Hale?" He elaborates. The name isn't helpful, but Lydia's suddenly thinking of the girl she's seen waiting for Stiles in the halls, scowl on her face, except for when she sees him.

"Is she that girl that hangs out at your locker between classes?"

Stiles raises his eyebrows. "Um. Yes?"

"Right." She pulls her hand back and, by the way his eyes follow the movement, she thinks he may be reading too much into it. "Right, so late night?" Lydia repeats, feeling slightly flustered and she's not sure why.

"You know I'm not dating Cora, right?"

"What? I didn't say you were. Why would I-"

"-Because, you know, she's Derek Hale's _sister_ and he terrifies me and, even if he didn't, Cora isn't exactly... She's not really my type."

"Stiles, I didn't ask." He's definitely reading more into this than he should be. She doesn't care about his relationship with Cora. Why would she?

"I know." He shrugs. "But for the record, I'm not dating Cora."

"Okay?" She rolls her eyes. "Noted." And then she turns back to her notes because he's smiling softly to himself and she's sure he's thinking that she cares who he dates. Which she doesn't. He can date whoever he wants.


	14. Chapter 14

"_**Now I just stop myself around you."**_

Stiles taps his steering wheel nervously, rain thundering on his windshield, head spinning with all the information he'd uncovered today. In a lot of ways, it doesn't matter. He and his friends have been looking into an old case, a _closed_ case, and what they've found won't change the results, but it still makes his head hurt.

Malia Tate, his old sort-of girlfriend, is not who she thinks she is. Not a Tate, but a Hale. Derek's _cousin_. But even that isn't the issue. It's her father, Derek's uncle, Peter Hale. Stiles hates Peter and that would be putting it mildly. Peter had been a big shot lawyer around town several years back, but his shady methods had caused him to be disbarred. Not, however, before he managed to take Stiles' mother's life insurance from the family, leaving his dad with a pile of hospital bills he couldn't pay. So yeah, Stiles hates the guy.

Should he tell Malia? Part of him feels that she has the right to know, but he doesn't like the idea of her anywhere near Peter. Malia has always had issues. She's a bit thoughtless of other's feelings and Peter's influence could only make that worse.

He's so distracted, he almost doesn't see the flash of color through the rain on his windshield. But he _does_ see it and, even though it's several shades darker, heavy and dripping with water, he'd know Lydia's hair color anywhere. He pulls over to the side of the road, his headlights illuminating the scene, Lydia standing in front of the open hood of her car, hands on her hips, positively drenched.

She turns around and squints against the light flooding her face. Stiles pops his door open and leans out.

"Lydia!"

"Stiles?"

"Get in!"

She trudges over to his car, not moving particularly quickly, as he ducks back into the dry interior. He supposes she can't get anymore waterlogged and he immediately begins to worry that she'll catch a cold, then thinks he sounds like an old granny and decides not to voice the concern to Lydia. In his defense, it is March, one of the colder months of the year. She slides into his passenger seat, streaming water.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, her hands going to her hair as she tugs it up into an incredibly messy bun, rivulets of water running down her neck and disappearing under her collar. Stiles watches the droplets slide across her skin and immediately tries to remember that he was just thinking about grannies.

"Driving. What are you? Why didn't you call AAA or someone to help you?"

Lydia rolls her eyes. "My phone is dead. I know what's wrong with the car, but I'm going to need a replacement part."

She's shivering, almost violently and, even though it's warm in the car, her clothes are soaked through. Stiles fumbles for his backpack, worried about her. He digs around and finds his lacrosse hoodie, buried in the bottom of the bag. He pulls it out and hands it to her.

"Here. Look, I'll call AAA. We can get your car towed and then I can take you home. Sound good?" She's looking at him funnily, her head tilted slightly, the hoodie still clutched in her hands.

"Yeah," she breathes, finally. "Are you sure that you want to wait with me?"

Stiles laughs. "I thought you'd know by now that I don't like stupid questions. You should put that on," he suggests, nodding at the hoodie.

"No point while I'm still wearing this," she gestures at her outfit. She sets the hoodie on the dash and then, without any warning, tugs her shirt off. Stiles starts to turn his head, to avoid looking at her, but something dark catches his eyes. There are large, dark bruises on her back, at shoulder height. He doesn't think before he acts, the concern and anger and sadness that wells up in him at the sight forces him to act. He reaches out, fingertips meeting her discolored skin, which is cold and slightly damp and goosebumps break out under his touch, but he doesn't seem to have control over his own body.

"Are you okay?"

Lydia swallows hard and doesn't meet his eyes. "It's fine. It's nothing."

"Lydia." She knows he's aware who caused this. She doesn't have to lie to him.

"Just leave it alone, Stiles." And then she moves away from his touch and is unzipping her skirt and he _does_ look away then. By the time he dares to look back, she's just wearing his hoodie (which is fortunately long enough to cover everything important), long bare legs curled up into the seat with her. She's so stunningly beautiful Stiles has to remind himself to breathe, as he tries not to blush at the fact that _all_ she's wearing is his hoodie with his lacrosse number emblazoned across the front. He calls AAA to avoid embarrassing himself further and then they sit and wait in silence.

Luckily, it doesn't take long and once they've towed her car away, Stiles drives Lydia home. He grabs an umbrella and ignores her protests that he doesn't have to walk her to the door and together they jog up her front walk. Lydia unlocks the door and steps inside and Stiles is about to turn back, but she grabs his available hand and tugs him inside with her, causing him to drop the umbrella just outside the door. She smiles at him, standing there in the foyer of her house, barefoot and in his hoodie and Stiles can feel a great ache rising up in his chest.

"Thanks for everything," she says gently, and he loves that right now she doesn't have any walls up. She's the Lydia he's always trying to draw out, the one he only sees sometimes. Behind him, the door is still open and the rain is loud and cold air is pushing into the entryway, but he doesn't care and she doesn't seem to either.

"Of course, I-" He doesn't get the chance to finish because Lydia hugs him, standing on her tiptoes and twining her arms around his neck. He reacts instinctually, arms going around her waist and tugging her closer, their bodies all pressed together, and he thinks his heart may have stopped beating, feeling her against him. He's not sure how long they stay like that, definitely longer than necessary and probably longer than appropriate, considering she's wearing his clothes and she has a _boyfriend_ (who doesn't deserve her), but finally she murmurs, "thanks," one more time and steps back and Stiles lets her go, feeling the loss of her body and her warmth acutely.

"You're welcome. I'll see you tomorrow, I guess." And then he steps backwards out her front door, scoops up his discarded umbrella, and walks back to his car, permanently fixing the way she'd looked in his hoodie and the way she'd felt against him in his mind.


	15. Chapter 15

"_**A small town, dictating all the people we get around."**_

She never thought she'd be that girl whose boyfriend hits her. And she's _not_, or at least, not more than once, but as she stands there, cheek throbbing, she's not thinking about how much it hurts, or how Jackson's already looking guilty, bringing out his sad eyes and apologetic whispers. She's thinking about how she has green bruises on her shoulders from being shoved into a wall, and purple bruises on her arms from where he's gripped her in anger, and a blue bruise blooming right now on her cheek from his fist.

He's been leaving bruises on her for months now. And she's been biting her tongue and hoping other people don't notice and telling Stiles to mind his own goddamn business, and all the while he's been bruising her. And she's not sure if she hates Jackson or herself more for that.

"We're done," she says, and she's surprised by how firm her voice comes out. She's not scared. She knows Jackson and she knows that he's volatile. She knows that he can fly off the handle at any moment and that breaking up with him might lead to more bruises, but she doesn't care, because she's not pretending that what he's done, or who he is, is okay for one more second.

"Lydia, baby, I'm sorry." His voice is a caress, but she can hear the poison in it. She doesn't like Jackson. She never really liked him all that much. But he was useful and beautiful and it was enough for her to ignore some of his worst character traits, and somehow, somewhere along the line, things had gotten out of hand. She's not the kind of girl who gets hit by a boy.

"You're not and I don't care." She doesn't feel anything, at the moment, not the pain that she knows is pulsing in her cheek, or the bruises on her skin, and certainly not any sadness at being rid of him.

"Listen, I know I shouldn't have... You just made me so angry, but I promise, I'll never do it again."

"You're right. You won't, because I'm never coming near you again. I would say have a nice life, Jackson, but I really don't care what happens to you."

She's pretty sure if she hadn't stunned him so drastically, she wouldn't have gotten to her car in one piece. As it is, she sees him in her rearview, standing in the doorway of his house, looking furious. But Jackson isn't her problem anymore, and once her bruises heal, she's going to forget all about him.

The emotion finally hits her when she's sitting on her bed and the pain is sinking in and the skin on her face is turning darker and darker. She's not sad. She's horrified. She's not crying because of him, she's crying because she's let him effect her. And she forgets, while she cries, that Stiles is coming over to study.

"Lydia?" Stiles' voice penetrates her bedroom door and she has a moment of panic as she realizes exactly how much of a mess she is, with her eyes and nose red and snot running down her face and the bruises.

"Don't come in!" But it's too late, because he's already opened the door and she's hastily wiping her face, hoping it's dark enough in her bedroom to keep him from realizing what's happened.

"Lydia?" He steps into the room. His voice is soft, worried. He's always so fucking good, too good. She can't stand it.

"Stiles, don't."

He reaches her and his eyes sweep up and down. He doesn't miss it; she knows by the way his eyes go dark. He's never missed anything about her. He kneels next to the bed.

"What happened?" His fingers brush gingerly over the bruise on her cheek and his eyes are calculating.

"I d-don't want to talk about it." She curses herself for stuttering. Stiles will never drop it unless he thinks she's okay. But she doesn't want to talk about it, not to him, who'd seen it coming all along.

"Was it Jackson?" There's an edge to his voice she's never heard before, one that makes her shiver.

"Stiles, don't."

"Was it Jackson?" This one is a demand, the force behind it roiling with anger. She's never seen him like this. It's somewhere between beautiful and horrifying. And she hates lying to him. Lying to Stiles feels wrong, because he already sees her like no one else does. She's not sure if that says something about him, or her.

Finally, she nods, weakly. It doesn't matter. He knows anyway. He's known from the moment he saw the perfect, finger shaped bruises on her arm. He's known from the moment he saw the way she tenses when Jackson raises his hand for any reason. Stiles looks away from her, jaw tightening.

"You're not ever going back to him," he says.

"That's not your decision!" Like she would _ever_ do that. She hates that he sees her like that, like the girl who _would_ go back to him. She doesn't think she can stand the idea of Stiles seeing her that way. "Do you think so little of me? I wouldn't do that!" But even as she spits it at him, she knows she doesn't have the best track record. He's seen it.

The lines of his face soften, slightly. "I just... I know you're strong, Lydia. And I know it's not really my business, but I wouldn't be able to watch that. I just couldn't." He doesn't say why, but she knows.

There's something about the darkness in his eyes and the tone of his voice that has her entirely convinced he means it. He wouldn't stand by and let it happen. But he's Stiles, and while he's not helpless, violence doesn't come easy to him the way it does to boys like Jackson, which is a good thing, but the idea of the two of them facing off in a fierce situation terrifies her.

"Jackson and I are over."

Stiles softens and he's reaching for her, drawing her close. "I'm sorry that he hurt you." And because he's Stiles, she knows he means it, so she hugs him tight and feels him breathe against her and revels in the fact that she's not at all afraid of what he might say or do, that she can't even imagine a situation in which he would hurt her. Who in her life has she ever felt that safe with?

"Bruises heal," she whispers.

"And everything else?" He's asking about what breaking up with Jackson has done to her heart. But the thing is, the answer is nothing.

"There is nothing else. The only thing I'm upset about is that I let him get away with it."

"Hey," Stiles pulls back to look at her seriously. There's a note of determination in his voice. "Nothing he did to you is in _any_ way your fault. Staying with him doesn't mean you caused it."

And that's what she's so scared of, that even though she knows she didn't _deserve_ the way he'd treated her, she hadn't stopped him. She could have. She could have left him at any time, but she didn't, and while it may not be her fault, she certainly feels partially responsible. She could have prevented this. She doesn't have to have these bruises on her skin. She hadn't stopped it. But here Stiles is, and he's telling her with a fierce conviction that that _doesn't_ make a difference and when he says it, she can almost believe it.


	16. Chapter 16

"_**Oh, what a familiar face."**_

If it wasn't bad enough that Derek's been dragging him and Scott around town during the hours they _should_ be sleeping all week, he's had a headache for days. Stiles likes to think that he has a fairly normal tolerance for pain. He's not a total wimp, or anything, but there's something about days and days of the same aching pain in his head that's got him totally thrown off. He tries to distract himself with the fact that Lydia has _finally_ dumped Jackson, but as glad as he is that Jackson won't be laying hands on her anytime soon, he's mostly just worried about her.

She doesn't want to talk about what happened. He doesn't push her, but God, the bruise on her face. Lydia is almost painfully real to him these days. She's distant no longer. He doesn't just _see_ her anymore, he _knows_ her. And it's almost unbearable, yet he'd never, ever give it up.

He trudges into Chem class. He's early, for once, and sits down at the empty lab station, having beaten Lydia. He leans forward drops his head onto his arms on the counter, squeezing his eyes closed and trying to will his headache away.

"Stiles?" A hand slides across his back and he doesn't lift his head because he recognizes Lydia's voice.

"Mmmm?"

"Are you okay?"

"Mhm."

"You're on time."

He turns his head to the side so he's facing her, where she's taken her seat beside him. Her hand is resting on his shoulder and he's hyperaware of it. He squints one eye open.

"Mhm."

"Late night again?" Lydia asks, eyebrows raised.

"God, don't remind me."

She gives him a small smile and that look is in her eyes again, the one that he doesn't dare to hope means what he feels like it means. Because Lydia Martin wouldn't ever love him back, right?

The bell rings and Lydia removes her hand from his shoulder and starts turning to the proper page in her notebook. Stiles tries to take notes, but he can't concentrate. His head hurts and he can't stop thinking about the way Lydia had looked at him.

He's almost glad when lunchtime rolls around and he can meet Scott in the cafeteria and doze through lunch. Scott doesn't seem to be nearly as tired as Stiles, which he doesn't understand, because it's not like Scott's been getting any more sleep.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Scott asks for about the millionth time.

"Scott, we've gotten like a total of 6 hours of sleep all week, no I am not okay."

"We've gotten more sleep than that," Scott says, somehow missing the point.

"Not much," Stiles grumbles and pokes at his macaroni and cheese. It seems to have a strange almost plastic consistency and he decides to give it up.

"Dude, you look kind of pale."

"I'm fine. Headache."

Scott continues to squint at him with concerned eyes until Cora sets her lunch tray down with a bang, distracting him.

"You look terrible," she says, frowning at Stiles.

"Wow. Thanks."

She shrugs. "Friends tell friends these things." Isaac sits down next to her and Stiles watches, with some surprise, as he slides an arm around her waist. Cora actually smiles. Stiles gives Scott a look that he hopes his friend can interpret as "when the fuck did that happen?" Scott shrugs, looking just as surprised as Stiles.

"You can stop thinking about it," Cora says in a bored tone, digging into her own macaroni as if it doesn't look like something that should have a biohazard sign on it.

"We didn't even-"  
>"-Yep and you're not gonna."<p>

"Right." Stiles sighs, his head pounding worse than ever. "I'm gonna go to the library." Maybe there it'll be quiet and relaxing and he can stop having thoughts chase each other around his head in endless loops.

The library is empty and Stiles snags the best seat, a sofa in the back. He tries not to think about how much sex has probably been had on this particular sofa, because right now, he just needs to close his eyes. He doesn't mean to fall asleep, but the next thing he knows he's blinking his eyes open and frantically checking his watch and then he only has twenty minutes to run to the locker room and change for lacrosse practice. His headache is still there.


	17. Chapter 17

"_**Do you get what I mean, now?"**_

Lydia Martin's birthday party is the event of the year. She is proud of this. But this year, with her break up with Jackson fresh and juicy gossip (there are about a thousand theories as to _why_, but none of them even come close to touching the truth, which she hasn't told anyone, even Allison), she's a little more annoyed than she is pleased by the turn out.

On the bright side, with a party this big, the whole school is invited, which means Stiles will be here. She's been a little distant with him since her break up with Jackson, due largely to the fact that he's the only person who knows what had gone on in that relationship and the reason it had fallen apart and she's been a little too wrecked to talk about it. The truth is, even though Stiles still comes to her house every afternoon to work on their Chem project, they haven't talked about personal things and he hasn't begged her to watch Star Wars with him and she hasn't worn her sweatpants, which make her feel both comfortable and vulnerable, in over a week. She also hasn't given him his hoodie back. And she misses him. The notion is absurd, she sees him every day. But she misses him. Even though she can't admit it to the world, Stiles is her friend, and working with him and being with him as if he _isn't_ makes her feel lonely and sad.

If he wasn't in love with her, she might have kissed him that night, standing just inside her doorway in his hoodie. She's glad she didn't. Because Stiles loves her, and she'd wanted to kiss him because he was being good to her when Jackson was not and that's not fair to Stiles. He's too good of a person to have someone kissing him just because he's _not_ someone else. So she's glad she didn't kiss him. She thinks.

She spots him the moment he walks in, side by side with Scott McCall. Stiles rubs the back of his neck, a sure sign that he's uncomfortable, and scans the crowd until his eyes lock with hers. She can't help but smile at him, feeling her heart lift at his responding smile. There's something about knowing he's here, that he, at least, is on her side, no matter what, that relaxes her. She's just wondering if she can go talk to him without it seeming odd, when Allison appears at her side, grinning from ear to ear.

"You know, everyone told me your birthday party was going to be legendary, but I didn't understand until now." Allison hands her an extra drink. "Is it really like this every year?"

Lydia nods, dragging her eyes off Stiles to smile at Allison. "Of course. I'm Lydia Martin. Nothing but the best." Lydia notices Danny weaving through the crowd and feels her body tense. She likes Danny, but if he's here, that might mean Jackson has dared to show his face and she's not sure she can handle that.

"Allison?"

"Yes?"

"Is Jackson here?" Her friend's head snaps up, also catching sight of Danny.

"I don't know. I haven't seen him. Do you _want_ him to be here?"

"No!" Lydia says quickly. That's the last thing she wants. If she never sees Jackson again, it'll be too soon.

"Oh, good." Allison sounds relieved. "I thought you might want to get back together with him and... Well, he's kind of an asshole."

"Yes, he is," Lydia agrees. She catches a glimpse of Stiles, head thrown back, laughing at something a pretty blonde girl had said. Lydia doesn't recognize the girl. There's a little something in her that makes her want to go over there and insert herself into the conversation, but she only gets one step in that direction before someone stops her, informing her that the punch bowl is empty. So her hostess duties pull her away and she loses him in the crowd.

By 1 am, the place starts clearing out a bit and Lydia feels relieved. She's always preferred the attention her party gets her more than the party itself. She manages to catch Stiles for just an instant and she murmurs, "Stay until it's over." He nods slightly and she moves away, checking that they aren't out of any food or drinks.

By 2, only Stiles and Allison are left. Stiles is stretched out on her sofa, eyes heavy with sleep, and Allison is helping Lydia pick up the kitchen.

"You can go," Lydia tells her, not wanting Allison to know how much she's looking forward to having a chance to actually talk to Stiles.

Allison frowns. "There's a boy asleep in your living room. I don't want to leave you alone with a strange boy." But Allison is yawning.

Lydia rolls her eyes. "That's just Stiles. I asked him to wait because I have some Chem notes for him."

"Chem notes?" Allison repeats, looking confused. Lydia has forgotten for a moment that Allison doesn't know how smart she really is.

"Yeah. He's my Chem partner for the final project and he let me borrow some of his notes and I need to give them back."

"Oh." Allison bites her lip. "You never talk about him?"

"Was that a question?" Lydia loves Allison, but she's ready for her to go and stop asking about Stiles.

"It's just... You know, Danny's in that class and he says the final is a ton of work, so you have to be spending quite a bit of time with him, but I didn't see you talk to Stiles once tonight and you've never even mentioned him to me."

Lydia forces another eye roll. She is _not_ sharing her feelings Stiles with Allison tonight. "He's just my Chem partner. Now, you need to go home before you pass out on my kitchen counter."

"Okay, okay." Allison throws up her hands in surrender and Lydia walks her to the front door. Allison hugs her.

"Happy Birthday!"

"Thanks. I'll text you tomorrow."

"Kay, bye!" And with that, it's just Lydia and Stiles.

He's completely asleep. Lydia's spent a lot of time with Stiles over the past few weeks, but she's never seen him like this, completely relaxed, his face soft, not a hint of a smile or a furrowed brow. He's kind of beautiful. Lydia's not sure she's ever thought that about a boy before, but then, she's never known anyone like Stiles and _beautiful_ is definitely the word. He's just a beautiful person and she kind of hates herself for being too embarrassed to admit to their friendship publicly.

"Stiles." She sits down on the sofa next to him and he blinks his eyes open, smiling groggily up at her. She has a sudden, intense urge to curl up next to him and bury her face in his chest, but she ignores it. That would be weird of her.

"Happy Birthday, Lyds."

"Thanks. And thanks for waiting." She grins. "Wanna help me open my presents?"

He sits up, a brilliant smile creeping over his face. "Absolutely."

30 minutes later, they're both sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor, surrounded by wrapping paper, bows, and an explosion of presents. Lydia holds out her wrist so Stiles can fasten the silver friendship bracelet Allison had bought her.

"I think you have more presents here than I've had in my entire life," Stiles tells her, biting his lip as he fiddles with the clasp.

Lydia laughs. "Well, you don't throw giant parties."

"I could never pull one off." He gets the clasp, then lifts his eyes to her. He looks happy, really, truly happy, which kind of surprises her because she'd been a little afraid he might hold this past week and her distance against her. She should have known that Stiles isn't that sort of guy. Something crosses her mind.

"Who was that girl, the pretty blonde one you were talking to?"

"Mmmm? Oh, Heather. We've known each other since we were babies."

"She looked like she likes you."

Stiles blushes. "Um."

Lydia feels a slight prick of... something, something unpleasant. "What?"

Stiles rubs the back of his neck. "It's nothing... I mean, she just..." He looks away. "Well, she asked me to take her virginity on her birthday last year," he says very fast.

"Oh?" Lydia's voice is a little higher than she intends it to be. "And did you?"

Stiles blushes deeper. "Um. No. I mean, we were going to, but... um, things got interrupted and after the moment was over I realized we don't really work like that."

"Oh." Lydia bites her lips. She should leave it there, but, "So are you still a virgin?"

"_What_?" Stiles is blushing furiously now.

"You don't have to tell me." She shouldn't have asked him that. It's an intensely personal question and she and Stiles are _friends_.

"Uh, no, it's okay. I'm not, actually."

Lydia feels a bit of surprise reverberate through her. She doesn't know why, but she'd always just kind of assumed Stiles was still a virgin. She doesn't ask, but he keeps talking.

"You know Malia Tate? We kind of had a thing for a while. It didn't last long, it was," he's the color of a tomato, "mostly physical."

"Right." Lydia files the information away and tries to pretend like it doesn't surprise or affect her.

"Yeah."

"Is that all the presents?" She changes the subject, wishing she'd never brought Heather up in the first place.

"Except mine." He looks a little shy when he says it.

She holds her hands out expectantly, smiling brightly. "Okay, let's have it."

It's wrapped in silver paper. For it's size, there's weight to it and she knows immediately it's a book. Stiles is the only person on earth who'd think to buy her a book. She smiles at him and rips the paper off, then freezes, staring at the book in her hands.

"Stiles, you can't give me this."

"Of course I can."

"But it must have cost a fortune." She wants to run her fingers over the cover, but she worries about the oil from her skin. She shouldn't be touching it at all, but she can't help herself as she opens the cover. It's a first edition.

"I found it in my mom's old collection," he says. She meets his eyes. "She would want you to have it."

"It's perfect." And the thing is, it _is. _It is absolutely the most personal and perfect present anyone has ever given her. She'd only mentioned it once, how she and her grandmother would read _The Little Mermaid_ when she was a child and she'd insisted on being called Ariel. She'd never expected him to remember it, or understand how dear the memory is to her. And that's when she realizes.

She carefully reaches up and sets the book on her desk, then looks at him, studying his face, the familiar spattering of moles and the honey-gold eyes. He looks back at her, a mixture of confusion and vulnerability in his eyes.

"You're my best friend," she says.

She sees surprise register. "No, I'm not. Allison is."

"No," she reaches out and takes his hand, threading her fingers with his. "You are. I love her, but she doesn't know me like you do." No one knows her like he does. She's never been comfortable enough to let anyone know her like he does. They sit there, holding hands and looking at each other and Lydia feels, vaguely, that this should be uncomfortable, but he's Stiles, and she doesn't worry that he'll judge her. She trusts him. Completely.

"I should get home," he says, getting to his feet and pulling her up. "It's really late."

He's right. It's nearly 4 am. But she doesn't want him to go. "Can you stay?"

"What?"

"Can you just stay? We don't have school tomorrow."

He studies her for a moment, then nods. "Okay."

So that night, she breaks another personal rule about friendship, and she sleeps curled up against Stiles, her nose brushing against the hollow of his throat and her body soaking up his steady warmth. She's happier than she can ever remember being before.


	18. Chapter 18

"_**I'm so fixated on the girl with the soft sound,"**_

He doesn't think he was reading the signs wrong. He doesn't think the way she looked at him was entirely platonic. He doesn't think that she'd woken up and felt nothing about holding each other all night. He doesn't think he was just making everything between them up from wanting it so much. But the fact that Lydia is standing twenty feet down the hall, leaning against her locker as Aiden boxes her in and flirts shamelessly, is a pretty good argument for the opposition.

He tries to tell himself it shouldn't hurt. She's never said she wants anything from him but friendship. _You're my best friend_, she'd said Saturday night, she'd _insisted_. But she hadn't looked at him like he was _just _her best friend. She'd looked at him the same way he looks at her; he's so sure of this.

He doesn't want her to catch him watching her pick out her new boyfriend, so he pulls his eyes away from the scene and turns his feet to his next class. He's jealous. He knows this, and he tries to tell himself that he shouldn't be, that he doesn't have a right to be, but the thing is, emotions don't work on rationale, they just _are_. And fuck, he's jealous.

By the time Chem class rolls around, he's dreading it. He already knows seeing her is going to be painful. It's bad enough, loving her with no hope. It's worse feeling like he's lost something. He wants to go back to Saturday night. He wants to be back in her bed, her body curled against his, just being with her. But instead, he has to head to Chem class and sit next to her and try not to think about what he'd seen this morning.

He's intentionally later than usual, just so he doesn't have to spend so much time with her. He feels her eyes on him the moment he steps through the door, but he doesn't look at her. His heart is in his throat. _It shouldn't hurt_. He doesn't argue about the detention he's handed, maybe he can tell Lydia he can't come over tonight because has too much to do with the detention on top of everything. That's good. He shouldn't see her tonight.

Of course she knows there's something wrong immediately. He's usually got his eyes on her as soon as possible and he never fails to give her a smile, but he just can't look at her. Did he really want her so badly that he tricked himself into thinking she might want him back? He doesn't want to believe that.

"Stiles, what's wrong?" she asks, as soon as the teacher, who's making rounds and checking on progress, is out of earshot.

"Nothing." The bitterness in his voice is surprisingly well concealed.

"Stiles."

He looks at her, throat aching. "Nothing, okay? And I can't come over tonight. Now that I have detention, I don't have time." His voice is blunt, probably the harshest he's ever been to her.

Her face crumples into hurt and concern. "What... There's something wrong, I know there is." She's stubborn, her chin tilted upwards. She looks like she really cares, she probably does. She _cares_ about him, she just doesn't want him. It shouldn't sting. He's never expected it. But God, his pride is smarting. He'd been so sure.

"Look, let's just not talk today." He looks away from her. He doesn't want to hurt her, not really, he just doesn't think he can stand her pity, when she's what he's hurting about.

"Did I do something wrong?" Her voice is so quiet and fragile and so _not_ like anything he's used to hearing from her. God, he didn't want to hurt her. But he can't answer that. She didn't do anything wrong, but she did hurt him, even if he doesn't have a right to be hurt by it.

"Why won't you talk to me?" she asks. "I talk to you! I talk to you about _everything_," she whispers vehemently, still keeping one eye on the teacher.

"That's because you're upset about other things," he snaps. "When I'm hurting, it's generally because of _you_, Lyds," he snaps, before he can stop himself. And then, before she can respond, because he really, really, doesn't want to know what she has to say about that, he stands up, grabs his backpack and storms out of the room. What does it matter? He already has detention.

He doesn't expect her to follow and she doesn't. His headache is back with a fury and he doesn't want to deal with anyone or anything for the rest of the day, so he decides to forget about it all and he stomps off to his jeep. Fuck school, fuck detention, fuck lacrosse. He's going home, he's going to take some pain medication, and he's going to finally get some decent sleep.


	19. Chapter 19

"_**hair all over the place."**_

She has no idea what's happened with Stiles. He hasn't spoken to her since he stormed off in Chem class yesterday, leaving her sitting there with surprise and hurt warring for dominance. What on earth had she done to deserve that? She'd never hurt Stiles on purpose. And everything between them had been so good. And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, he's incredibly cold.

Now, sitting in the first class of the day, waiting for the bell to ring and school to start, she can sense him. They don't sit together in English, but he's several rows behind her. She wonders if his eyes are on her, the way they generally are. Why is he upset with her? She tries to think of anything she might have done or said, but she comes up empty.

Class has barely started when the speaker system buzzes, the Principal's voice filling the air. This doesn't happen often, generally only when the school has to go on lockdown, or if there's a serious announcement. It turns out to be the latter.

Lydia knows something's wrong instantly. She can feel it in every pore of her body, and she forces herself not to turn and look at Stiles, who's sitting three rows behind her. Instead, she glances at Allison, who smiles at her, not sensing what Lydia does.

**"****Students, I regret that I must inform you that early this morning, one of your fellow classmates, Heather Conrad, was killed in a car accident."** The principal pauses there, and Lydia feels the information sink in. She doesn't know Heather, but... Stiles does. Again, she resists the urge to turn and look at him.

**"****There will be grief councilors available all week for any students who would like to talk. There will also be a candlelight vigil for her tomorrow night at 7 on school grounds for those who would like to attend."**

Someone pushes past her, darting to the front of the room and out the door. Stiles.

"Mr. Stilinski!" the teacher calls, but Stiles ignores her, door slamming behind him. For a second, Lydia is frozen in indecision. No one knows what Stiles means to her and there's not any subtle way to follow him. But he's hurting.

Lydia stands up, going after him.

"Ms. Martin!" She too, ignores the call.

Stiles is halfway down the hall, leaning against the lockers, face in his hands. Even from where she stands, she can see his shoulders shaking.

"Stiles." She reaches him, hands circling his wrists and tugging. He looks at her. And those eyes, those beautiful, expressive eyes are full of pain.

"I can't-" his chest heaves. "I can't breathe. I can't-" He's choking on words. He's choking on air.

"Hey," she takes his face in her hands, thumbs brushing over his cheeks. "Sssshhh. Just look at me. You're okay. Look at me, Stiles."

He makes a sort of strangled sobbing sound. "I can't-"

"Stiles. Look at me." It's a command and somehow, someway, it breaks through to him. His breathing steadies a little and he squeezes his eyes closed and leans his forehead in against hers. They stay like that, forehead to forehead, her hands on his cheeks and his circling her wrists until he's breathing normally again.

"Thanks," his voice is rough. She hugs him, standing on tiptoe to even their height difference a little. In the corner of her eye, she sees a flicker of movement. She turns her head slightly and sees Allison standing just outside the door to their classroom, watching them with wide eyes. She knows.

At the moment, Lydia can't bring herself to care, so she just shakes her head very slightly and Allison, bless her, nods and goes back into the classroom.


	20. Chapter 20

"_**And you're sure that I'll learn."**_

After she sends the fifteenth text, she feels suddenly stupid. It's Stiles. He'll get back to her. But that doesn't stop the panic clawing at her throat as she leans back against his headboard and pulls her knees up to her chest. It's stupid that she feels safer in his room than hers. But then, nothing bad has ever happened in his room. And this just cannot be happening.

Five minutes later, Stiles bursts into his bedroom, gasping and waving his phone around wildly.

"I just got your texts. What's going on?"

She stares at him standing there, panting and looking at her with so much concern in his eyes. No one's ever cared about her like he does. He loves her. She knows this; she's known this from the beginning. Her throat suddenly feels too tight to speak. What if he never looks at her the same?

"Lyds? Are you okay?" He moves slower as he comes to sit down next to her.

She shakes her head.

"What is it?"

She can't say it, so instead she reaches into her purse and hands him the pregnancy test. He stares down at it, down at the positive marking, and his brow furrows.

"Jackson?" he asks, finally. And of course he sees immediately what she's most upset about, because he's Stiles, and he loves her.

She nods, mutely, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. Just when she thought she was done with Jackson, he finds one last, and very permanent way to haunt her. She can't have his baby. She just can't. Stiles sets the pregnancy test on his nightstand and grips her hands.

"What do you want me to do, Lydia? I'll do whatever you need. You can say it's mine, if you want, so he can never come near you or the baby."

Lydia closes her eyes. She will never, ever deserve to have Stiles in her life.

"I don't know," she admits, at last, hoarsely. Will he think she's terrible if she says she thinks she doesn't want to have the baby at all? But no, he's Stiles. He'll do anything for her. That's why she's never going to deserve him.

"Lyds? How many of these have you taken?" Stiles asks, staring fiercely at the test, like he can make it cease to exist with nothing but his gaze.

"Just that one. Why?"

"It's just, they're not completely accurate. Some brands are better than others. You should do more than one, just to be sure."

She shakes her head. "I can't go buy another one. You should have seen the way the lady at the cash register looked at me. I might as well tattoo "slut" across my forehead."

Stiles stands up. "I'll go. I'll buy them."

"Stiles, you really don't have to-"

"-I want to. I'll be back in ten minutes." He leans down to press a kiss to the top of her head and then he's gone, as fast as he appeared.

It takes him exactly ten minutes and forty three seconds to return, this time carrying a plastic bag. He dumps the contents onto his bed. There are thirteen pregnancy tests of all different brands. She looks up at him, the smallest smile on her lips because _of course_ Stiles would go over the top.

He blushes a little. "I just want you to be really sure."

"Hey, Stiles, I wanted to let you know that dinner-" The Sheriff appears in the doorway, making Lydia jump. She blushes bright red as she realizes he's staring at the pile of pregnancy tests on the bed.

"Dad, I can explain," Stiles says quickly, hands gesturing frantically.

"You know, believe it or not, Son, I already know what a pregnancy test is." His father is looking at him sternly.

"They're for Lydia," Stiles says.

His father raises his eyebrows.

"No," Stiles blushes furiously, then glances at her, looking panicked. "I mean, she and I haven't- We're not- I'm not-"

"-Stiles and I have never had sex," Lydia interrupts, cutting Stiles off before he can make the situation worse. "I just freaked out and didn't want to go to the store to buy one and so Stiles went for me. My ex-boyfriend is kind of an asshole."

"_Kind of?_" Stiles looks affronted and ready to outline _exactly _how he feels about Jackson, but he doesn't get the chance.

"Well," the Sheriff looks over the two of them suspiciously, then nods. "I'm glad I've managed to raise a son who is there for his friends, but I'm really hoping I never stumble across a scene like this ever again. And on that note, I'm going to work." They both watch him stomp away and a moment later the front door slams.

Stiles picks up one of the tests and holds it out to her. "Okay, this is supposed to be the best one."

Lydia almost smiles at how meticulous he's being. She takes the box and slips into his bathroom. She's still scared, but it's not an overwhelming fear, anymore. Stiles is there and she knows he will continue to be there. She probably couldn't get rid of him at this point if she tried.

She's sitting on the edge of his tub, trying not to look at the test as she waits out the time. She'd thought about opening the door and letting him wait with her, but she's pretty sure that he's pacing around his room and if he paces around the bathroom, she might actually go crazy.

Her cellphone alarm goes off and she hears a slight crash from the bedroom and a quiet "ow." Lydia takes a deep breath and looks down. She feels numb, like time is moving in slow motion. She stands up and opens the door to find Stiles about four inches in front of her face, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"So?"

"It's- It's negative." She looks down at it again, like the results might have changed. "It's-" she holds it out and he takes it from her, looking down and then back up again.

"Yeah. It is." He looks back at her. "Do another one," he turns and rushes back towards his bed, tripping slightly over the leg of his rolling desk chair. He grabs another box and hands it to her. She's still not sure all of this is real. She takes it from him and closes the door.

3 minutes later, she emerges holding the latest test. "It's negative."

"It's negative?"

"It's negative."

There's a grin creeping across his face. "Do you want to do another one?"

"Stiles, you try peeing on a stick 3 times in a row. There's only so much urine in a person at a time," she snaps, but relief is flooding every pore of her body.

He shrugs. "Do you want a glass of water?"

She sighs. "Fine." But she's smiling and she can't help but feel touched at how invested he is in her happiness. Eight glasses of water and four more negative tests later she calls it quits.

"Stiles, I don't think I'm pregnant."

"I, also, am pretty sure you're not pregnant." He holds up the remaining 7 tests. "But what am I supposed to do with these?"

"Save them for the next time?" Lydia teases.

"Ha. Trust me, I'm in no danger of getting anyone pregnant at the moment."

"Well, it can't hurt to have them around." She sits down on his bed and lies back, smiling at his ceiling. Stiles joins her, sliding his fingers between hers and squeezing her hand.

"Next time you see your dad, please inform him that I am not pregnant," Lydia says.

Stiles laughs. "Will do."

"And Stiles?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. You know, for everything."

He squeezes her hand again. "Anytime, Lyds."

She almost can't be surprised when he shows up on her doorstep at 2 pm on Saturday carrying a bag of junk food and a box of Midol. She'd almost refused to get out of bed to answer the door due to the cramps that feel like her ovaries are going to explode. It's been just under 24 hours since she'd taken an absurd amount of pregnancy tests in his bathroom and her period had hit with a vengeance by 8 pm that night. She hadn't, however, gotten around to telling Stiles, so the fact that he's standing here, wielding the junk food and Midol like weapons, is nothing short of incredible.

"How did you know?"

"I didn't," he smiles, stepping past her. "But I figured it had to be soon, right?"

She stares at his back, as he strides towards her stairs. She's in leggings, a giant hoodie, and she's pretty sure the hairband that's keeping her bun up is so tangled in her hair that she'll have to cut it out, and Stiles hadn't even blinked.

"There's also a gallon of ice cream in the Jeep," he calls over his shoulder. "But it didn't fit in this bag. I'll go back for it in a second."

She catches up to him just as he's dumping the supplies in her bedroom.

"I love you," she says, which is sort of a joke and which he certainly takes as one, since he grins and says, "you're welcome," but as he's heading back down the stairs for the ice cream, she realizes that it's true. He's her best friend and of course she loves him. He's one of the best things in her life and she'd be an ungrateful bitch if she didn't love him. She hopes he understands how important he is to her.

Stiles stays and watches chick flicks with her and fixes tea and insists on getting her laundry out of the dryer when he hears it going off. Together, they devour an enormous amount of the food he brought and by 9 pm, she finds herself feeling incredibly content, if overly fed.

"You know," she tells him, "you can't do this every month because I'll get super fat."

He grins. "Now _that_, I'd like to see."

"Hey, for being my best friend, that's a horrible thing to wish upon me."

He shoots her a sly smile and hops up to change the DVD. And as she watches him mess with the controls, brow furrowed and chewing on a twizzler, she revises her earlier assessment. Stiles is hands down the best thing in her life.


	21. Chapter 21

"_**I'm pushing through bodies."**_

The fact that someone as uptight as Derek owns a club, never ceases to amaze him. There's something about Hales, all blunt, all varying degrees of sullen, all full of surprises.

"Stiles!" He jerks out of his thoughts to see Derek glowering at him. Typical.

"W-what?"

"For a reason I cannot begin to fathom, there's an incredibly hot girl staring at you."

"_What_?" Stiles turns, following Derek's gaze and sees Lydia Martin sitting at the bar. Oh, God. He's seen her here before, but he'd been so busy and stressed, he hadn't thought that she might show up again.

"I need a shot. Now."

Derek studies him with intense eyes. "Do you know her?"

"Derek, I need a shot." He can feel Lydia's eyes on him. "No, make that two, maybe three... Fuck, I need a round of shots."

Derek sighs and motion to one of the cocktail waitresses, who scampers over immediately (one of the perks of being the owner), and he orders something, Stiles isn't listening.

"You and Scott need to start _paying_. I'm not even supposed to be serving you. You shouldn't even be able to get in here."

"Is she still looking?" Stiles ignores Derek's grumbling. He's been threatening that since the day the club opened.

"No. She's dancing with some blond guy."

Stiles turns so fast his shoulder cramps up. Sure enough, Lydia's got a drink in one hand and her body pressed up against a guy who could have come out of an Abercrombie & Fitch advertisement. Stiles looks away, quickly. He doesn't really want to see that. He doesn't know how to be around her in a space like this.

Is he supposed to ignore her? Is he supposed to pretend that he doesn't know that she owns pajama bottoms with sheep on them? Or that she actually knows the Star Wars trilogy almost as well as he does? Is he supposed to act like he hadn't bought 13 pregnancy tests for her? Or that he hadn't slept next to her on her birthday and woken up holding her? Is he supposed to behave as if she'd hadn't insisted that he's her best friend, who knows her like no one else? Should he pretend that he isn't in love with her? Is it supposed to be like it is at school, where they exchange glances and smiles, but don't speak outside of class?

But she'd been staring at _him_ so maybe those rules don't apply here. The shots arrive and Stiles downs one after the other, then catches Derek glaring at him.

"What?"

"Some of those were supposed to be for me."

"So get some more?" Stiles suggests. He's definitely not feeling drunk enough for this, so he'd welcome another batch.

"Stiles." he jerks around again, and Lydia's standing there, cheeks flushed and eyes a little blurry. Either the alcohol is starting to hit him, or he's getting drunk off looking at her in the tight black dress, short _and_ low cut. Is that second round of shots coming anytime soon?

"Hey."

"Come dance," she says, smiling brilliantly at him.

"Dance," he repeats. The word seems to have lost all meaning because it cannot possibly mean what he thought it meant.

"Yes, come dance with me." The waitress is back with shots and he grabs another and tips it back and then he's standing up and following Lydia Martin to the dance floor. He has no idea what he's doing, but Lydia doesn't seem to care. That, or she's too drunk to notice.

She presses up against him and he almost forgets to breathe. He's been in incredibly intimate situations with Lydia, but never with such an overtly sexual tone. She's all soft curves and smooth skin and he wants to touch her so badly that it hurts. She moves with the music and there's no space between them to breathe.

Stiles' head is all fuzzy and he doesn't know how much of that is the shots and how much of it is just Lydia. She turns around and presses back against him and, oh fuck, this will probably end embarrassingly for him, but his brain is moving languorously and he can't seem to care. And now Lydia's rocking back against him and he knows she must feel the way he's hardening under her movements, _knows_ because she turns her head back to look up at him and she smiles in a way that's part enticing and part teasing. He doesn't even realize he's got his hands on her hips, dragging her back against him just a little harder, until she gasps and giggles and he's so close that he actually sees her pupils dilate and he's never believed that happens when people are turned on, but he guesses he was wrong.

She swivels in his hold so she's facing him again and she's so close that their noses are brushing and her breath is hots on his lips. He leans in, their lips just starting to brush, when a deep, male voice says his name.

Stiles feels his head jerk up and finds Derek standing next to them, arms crossed, looking incredibly out of place on the dance floor.

"What?" He can't keep the annoyance out of his voice. He'd been about to kiss Lydia Martin and, Derek, of all people, had to interrupt.

"You told me to make _sure_ you left before 2 am, no matter what," Derek states.

Stiles wants to yell that the very obvious exception to that rule would be if he's dancing with and almost kissing Lydia, but Derek's interruption has sobered him up a little, and even though Lydia's still all pressed up against him in all the right places, his sluggish brain is starting to realize that as much as he wants this, both he and Lydia are drunk, and she might not feel that way tomorrow.

While they've been standing here, Lydia's forehead has dropped to his shoulder and she's gripping him tightly and she fits so perfectly against him that he can't imagine letting her go.

"Okay," he manages, sort of hating himself for it. He leans in to talk in Lydia's ear.

"Lyds, it's time to go. Derek's gonna take us home."

He notices Derek's eyebrows shoot up at the comment, he'd agreed to do no such thing, but Stiles gives him a look that clearly says that neither he or Lydia are driving anywhere anytime soon.

Lydia falls asleep in the back of Derek's car on the way to her house, so Stiles has to wake her up when they get there. She's all soft eyes and warm hands as he helps her out of the car. He can see she's sobered up a bit, though she's still drunk. He walks her to the door and she hugs him tight and whispers, "thank you" and "you're the best" to him, which he doesn't know how to interpret, before he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks back to Derek's car. The moment they pull away from her house, Derek speaks.

"Are you sleeping with her, then?"

Stiles feels the air catch in his throat at the thought and he coughs. "No. We're just close friends."

Derek snorts. "That, on the dance floor, was not friends."

"That was dancing, Derek, not that you'd known anything about that," Stiles defends himself, but he knows what Derek means. They'd crossed a line tonight, one that he's been on the other side of for a long time, but one that he's not really sure Lydia wants to be.

"No," Derek says. "That was foreplay."


	22. Chapter 22

"_**Avoiding me and walking 'round you."**_

Agony. That's what a migraine is. Stiles tries to hold his head together as he stumbles to his bathroom and throws up in the toilet from the pain. It's getting worse. For two days, the headache had abated, become only a minor pain in the back of his head, but now it's returned with a vengeance and he's thrown up four times. He is _not_ going to school today.

He hasn't seen Lydia since he and Derek had dropped her off Friday night and he's not sure what he's going to say to her when he does. They'd texted a couple of times, but only long enough for him to tell her he had plans with Scott on Saturday and his dad on Sunday, so their next study session would have to wait. They've been pretty much done with the Chem project for the past two weeks, anyway.

He sends a mass text to his friends and a separate one to Lydia letting them know he isn't feeling well and won't be at school. He doesn't expect her to show up at his house in the middle of the day when she should definitely be in class. One moment, he's got an arm flung over his eyes, trying to block out as much light as possible, and the next, his hears his bedroom door open. He assumes it's his dad, even if he's not usually home at this time.

"Stiles?"

He sits up fast, eyes flying open, and immediately regrets it, nausea rolling through him and pain piercing his left eye. "Lyds?"

"What's wrong?"

"Migraine. How the hell did you get in here?"

"Your front door is unlocked." She sits down on his bed as he cradles his head in his hands, taking slow deep breaths.

"Have you taken something for it?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't seem to be helping," he grits out.

"You should drink something. I'll get you a glass of water." She stands up, moving towards the door.

"Wait, don't. I'll only throw it up. I've been throwing up stomach acid for the past two hours."

He's not looking at her, opting to keep his eyes squeezed shut, but he can sense her presence in the doorway. "You need to have something in your stomach," Lydia counters. "If you throw up too much stomach acid, you could burn a hole through your esophagus and end up in ICU."

He groans, but relents and she brings him a glass of water and plain toast. He gags it down, struggling because it's going to come back up in a little bit, anyhow.

"Why didn't you call me?" Lydia asks, as she curls up next to Stiles on his bed, sliding an arm over his waist.

"What for? It's a migraine. It'll pass."

"Because you shouldn't have to be alone. I want to help you."

He feels the smallest smile on his lips. "Thanks, Lyds."

"You're my best friend." This time, when she says it, it doesn't hurt. He loves that he's Lydia's best friend. Maybe she won't want more from him and maybe, just maybe, she will, but having her as a friend is incredible and he isn't going to give it up.

She stays with him the rest of the day. He throws up six more times and part of him feels like he should be embarrassed, being this way in front of her, but he's only glad that she's there with comforting embraces and quiet words and he clings to her and tries to think about her and not the pain in his eye and the rolling of his stomach.

By the time the sun goes down, the pain in his eye is slowly fading and Lydia ventures downstairs to make dinner. She keeps it simple and he's sure she knows he still doesn't feel like he can handle much on his unsettled stomach. They sit on his bed and eat dinner and she talks to him and Stiles forgets that the last time he saw her, she'd pressed her body all over him and he forgets about the things that Derek said and he's just happy she's here.


	23. Chapter 23

"_**And you're cold and I burn."**_

She's having a pretty good day, better than she can remember in a while, and maybe that's why it's so shocking when it falls apart. She doesn't think too much of it when Stiles doesn't answer her text. He's usually pretty good at keeping his phone on him, but he's Stiles, and it's the middle of the school day and there's a very high possibility that he's had his phone confiscated by a disgruntled teacher.

It's not until she hears someone say his name in the hallway that she starts to worry. Stiles isn't really a big topic of conversation, but it's not even that they'd said his name, it was the _way_ they'd said it, leaning towards their friend, breathing it with a sort of morbid excitement. They were saying it exactly the way she's heard them saying _Heather_, for weeks. Something cold settles in her chest, but she pushes it away. She has Chem next and he'll tumble into the room, probably late, and she'll forget that she was stupidly worried to begin with.

Only he never comes to Chem class. She texts him twice more, but there's no answer and, at this point, with that tight feeling in her chest, she doesn't expect one. Something's wrong. The moment the bell rings, she's up, walking with a purpose. If there's one person who will know what's happened to Stiles, it's Scott McCall.

She finds him just as he's closing his locker, and the scrunched up worried expression on his face is enough to confirm her suspicions.

"Where's Stiles?" She demands, causing Scott to jump and look up at her. He does a double take when he realizes who's talking to him, mouth dropping open.

"Lydia? What-"

"_Where's_ Stiles?"

"A-At the hospital," Scott stutters, staring at her with wide, confused eyes. "He collapsed in History class, and-"

She turns on her heel, marching towards the front doors, heart in her throat.

"-Hey! Where are you going!?" Scott yells after her, but she doesn't bother to answer him.

She runs into her first roadblock at the nurses station.

"I'm here for Stiles Stilinski."

"Are you family?" The nurse is regarding her skeptically.

"Yes," Lydia lies, chin up.

"Really, because I actually know the Stilinski family and-"  
>"-Listen," Lydia snaps, "I'm not moving from this spot until you tell me where he is and what's wrong with him. I will stand here all day if I have to."<p>

The nurse narrows her eyes, "Sweetheart, I don't really care what you do, I'm not-"

"-Clara, it's okay, she can come through." Lydia and the nurse both look up to see Sheriff Stilinski standing by the counter. Lydia forgets about the nurse immediately.

"What's going on? Is he okay?" She steps towards the Sheriff, dimly aware that her panic is very plainly showing.

"He's... He's awake. They're running some tests." The Sheriff sighs deeply and runs a hand over his face, then motions Lydia to follow him. They enter a set of double doors she sees briefly are marked _Radiology_.

"Do they... Do they have any ideas?" Lydia asks. The fire is fading from her now that she's here and there's no one to fight.

"Did he ever tell you about his mom?"

Lydia feels the air leave her lungs. He can't mean what she thinks he means. "Yes," she breathes.

"They're worried it may be... at least related to that. He's about to get an MRI. Through here," he directs, and pushes open a door. Lydia steps into a room where a technician and a doctor are huddled close together, speaking in quiet voices. She looks past them, through the glass window where Stiles is sitting alone, in a very bright room, the blue of his hospital gown the only color to be seen. She loses her breath all over again. He looks so vulnerable, sitting there. A pretty nurse opens the door to the room and goes to stand next to the Sheriff. She looks vaguely familiar to Lydia, but she doesn't know why.

"Can I talk to him?" Lydia asks very softly.

The nurse looks between Lydia and the Sheriff. He nods.

"Okay, right this way," the nurse ushers Lydia through a door and the next thing she knows, she's standing there, facing him. His eyes go round with surprise.

"Lydia?"

"Hi." She drifts over to him. Like this, with him sitting on a lifted seat and her standing, they're almost exactly the same height.

"What are you doing here?" She notices that his hands are shaking, whether with nervous energy or something else, she isn't sure. She steps a little closer so she can put her own hands on top of his.

"You said you didn't like stupid questions."

He smiles weakly, for a second, staring down at their linked fingers. His chin trembles slightly, and she can see the tension in his shoulders.

"I'm scared," he breathes, so quietly she almost doesn't hear it. Her heart feels like it's shattering. Her hands leave his of their own accord, coming up to his face. It's reminiscent of their moment in the hallway.

"It's okay," she breathes, but she doesn't know and it's probably a lie. Her thumbs brush over his cheeks.

"Lyds, I want-" He closes his eyes, then, taking a shuddering breath. And she wants to ask, _what_, but she doesn't get the chance because he kisses her. And for a second, it doesn't matter that they're in a hospital, and he's sick, and there's a room full of people on the other side of the window watching. It doesn't matter, because he's Stiles and she loves him and he's kissing her. His lips are soft and gentle but she can taste the desperation on them. He's scared and she would do anything to take that away from him, but she's scared too, so she doesn't think she can.

He pulls back a little, releasing a shaky breath. "Sorry, I- Just sorry."

She's not, so she leans in and kisses him again. For a moment, he's frozen under her lips in surprise. His hands travel to her waist and he pulls her close. If she could stay right here, in this moment, forever, she would. When he pulls back this time, there's no apologizing. The look on his face is not one she could ever put words to, all questions and hope and maybe a little bit of understanding. She would not be at all surprised to find that she's wearing the same expression.

"It's time." Lydia turns to see that the nurse is back, there to take her away from him. A huge part of her wants to protest, but she knows it won't do any good and Stiles deserves for her to be strong, even if he can't.

"Alright." She looks back to him, for just a second, and forces a small smile. "It'll be okay." And that's the best she can manage even though there's part of her that's screaming "do better," that he deserves so much more than that. But then, she's never, ever deserved him and she probably never will.

By the time she reaches the nurse, her eyes are full of tears, so she doesn't turn around again. The nurse puts a hand on her shoulder as she ushers her back into the room with the window looking in on him.

"We don't know anything yet," she says gently. "He could be just fine."

Lydia glances at her, her automatic, distraught instinct is to lash out, but then she sees the look on the nurses face. She looks like she's holding back tears of her own.

"You care about him," Lydia says, half an observation, half a question.

"He's like my own. His mom died when he was so young and he was always at my house, causing trouble."

"You're Scott's mom." The realization makes several puzzle pieces fall into place.

"Melissa," the nurse introduces herself.

"Lydia."

"Oh, I know. Anyone who's been within a fifty yard radius of Stiles knows who Lydia Martin is. I've been hearing about you since he was eight." Melissa gives her a small smile. "Which is why I was a little surprised, because I haven't heard a word about you two... you know."

Lydia blushes just a little. "We're not. I mean... It's-it's complicated."

"I understand, honey." And it's the first time someone's ever said that to her and she actually believes it. She and Melissa shuffle their way over to stand next to the Sheriff and Melissa puts a hand on his arm. Lydia has the fleeting thought that perhaps Melissa understands a little more than even Lydia had believed.

The machines power up and the technician is giving Stiles instructions through the speaker system. She watches him lie back. Her throat tightens up. She tries to breathe. This won't be over any time soon. She glances at Melissa.

"How long will this take?" she asks.

"At least an hour."

Lydia nods. She expected nothing less, but all of a sudden she's feeling overwhelmed. She curses herself internally as her tears spill over, streaming down her cheeks. She's supposed to be strong. But she's standing here, helpless, as her best friend might be losing everything and she just wants to _do_ something. She shudders, biting down on her lip so hard that it starts to bleed. There's a scream creeping up her throat, but she holds it in. Screaming won't help anyone.

A warm hand lands on her back and she looks up to find his father gazing down at her with empathy. And she's done for, so she let's herself go and she turns into him and presses her face to his shoulder and cries and he holds her and whispers, "I know."

When she's done crying, Melissa convinces her to sit in the back of the room and sip some tea, which Lydia greatly appreciates. Melissa's phone is buzzing like crazy.

"Scott," she explains to Lydia. "He's really mad I wouldn't let him back here."

"Why didn't you?" Scott and Stiles are practically brothers. She's surprised Melissa's banishment has worked.

"He can't afford to miss any more school. It'll only stress Stiles out if he finds out Scott fails math because he was sitting in here instead."

Lydia nods, absently, her mind drifting back to Stiles. She bites her lip, then winces, it's tender and slightly swollen from where she'd broken the skin earlier.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" She knows it's a stupid question, that, answered honestly, won't tell her anything new.

"I don't know, honey. But whatever happens, he has the people who love him around him and they aren't going anywhere."

Lydia feels another tear escape, but she brushes it away. "Things like this shouldn't happen to people like him. He deserves better."

"They shouldn't happen to anybody. None of us deserve this to happen to us or the people we love."

Lydia shakes her head. "Even if it's the worst possible scenario, he's still the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I didn't even deserve that much."

An expression that Lydia doesn't have time to analyze passes over Melissa's face and she opens her mouth to answer, but there's a loud buzzing and the technician says, "It's done."

Both Lydia and Melissa stand up. "I'll take him to his room," Melissa says, and then she's gone and Lydia hovers beside the Sheriff, unsure what happens now.

"I need to speak with the doctors," the Sheriff says. "Why don't you follow Melissa to Stiles' room?"

Lydia nods and steps out into the hallway, spotting Melissa wheeling Stiles down the hall. Stiles is saying something with a frustrated hand gesture that Lydia imagines may have to do with an objection to the wheelchair. The fact that his movement is so animated makes her smile and breathe a little easier. As long as he's protesting and sarcastic there will be a reason to smile.


	24. Chapter 24

"_**I guess I'll never learn,"**_

He goes to Lydia's house as soon as they release him from the hospital with promises of test results as soon as possible. He doesn't want to go home, where he can sit in the same rooms he sat in while he and his dad waited to hear his mother's test results. He can't be there. His father, who is the best dad in the whole goddamn world, understands this entirely and hugs him tight before watching him disappear with Lydia.

For her part, Lydia seems to understand that he wants to do _anything_ but think about what he might be about to find out. Her smile might be a little tight, but she's making an effort to smile and she tells him all about the stupid latest gossip from her circle of friends and she digs out her old Star Wars VHS tapes for them to watch and she's basically fucking incredible.

They lie on her sofa and argue about who the best character is and whether or not the new trilogy had _any_ good points and Stiles almost dozes off with Lydia's cheek pressed to chest and her breathing steady against him. He wants to kiss her again. But he can't.

He will never, _ever_ forget what it had been like to kiss Lydia, but he can't do it now, because now that he might be sick, she'll let him, she'll kiss him back, even if she doesn't really want to, because Lydia cares about him and won't want to hurt him. And if he _is_ dying, then he can't kiss her ever again for the exact same reason. He doesn't want her to kiss him out of pity.

He'll just have to remember, remember the way her lips had moved against his and the look on her face when they'd parted. He hasn't been wrong. She has feelings for him, he's _sure_. He doesn't know how deep they run or if she'll ever want to act on them, but the knowledge that she feels something along the lines of what he feels for her, that's enough.

Lydia stretches a little then shivers. "I'm gonna get a blanket." She stands up, and Stiles can't help but wonder how he ever got so lucky as to have Lydia in any form, even as a friend. She returns with a blanket and curls up against him and she's warm and soft and he almost forgets, for just a moment, that they're lying here waiting for a phone call that could change everything.

He doesn't know how it happens, because relaxed should be the last thing he should be feeling, but he falls asleep, his heart beating against her hand. He's woken up by his phone ringing and dread pools in his stomach. His body is suddenly cold, as Lydia sits up, eyes wide. He struggles into a sitting position, throat tight. He fumbles for his phone, then stares down at it, frozen.

"Do you want me to...?" Lydia asks.

"No." He will not put that burden on her, to tell him his fate. He takes a deep breath, presses accept.

"Hello?"

The voice at the other end of the phone is cold and clinical as it asks to speak with him. They use his real name, which doesn't feel like his, and he wants to say that's _not_ him and hang up the phone and pretend like the test results belong to the boy with that name.

But instead, he swallows and says, "Speaking."

His eyes catch on Lydia's and he gets lost there, in a sea of green, breathing and looking at her and feeling his heart pound in his ears.

"S-sorry, can you say that again?" He's not sure he's heard correctly. Lydia's biting her lip, concern scrawled across her face.

"Yes, yes, thank you." He hangs up, trying to breathe. He can see, by the expression on her face, that Lydia won't ask. She'll wait for him to tell her.

"I'm... okay."

He actually hears Lydia's breath catch. "You're okay?" she repeats slowly.

"Well, not, okay, okay. They said I have a severe concussion and I have to stop lacrosse and I'm not even supposed to go to school for full days or study because apparently _thinking_ is bad for me and how the fuck am I supposed to stop _thinking_? But it's not, you know, what my mom had, so "okay" in a relative sense and-"

"-You're okay?" The tone of her voice stops his blabbering dead. He's never heard her voice like that, like her world hangs on his answer and that seems absurd, because that would mean her world hangs on _him_.

"Yeah," and _his_ voice comes out low and scratchy and surprised.

"You're okay," she repeats, a grin starting to spread across her face, slowly, but brilliantly.

"Yeah," he says again, and a laugh bubbles up his throat, relief suddenly flooding every pore of his body. _He's okay_. Well, sort of. He's okay, enough. He's not _dying_, which is the important thing.

Lydia moves forward, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face into his neck. He can feel her smiling against his skin. And he's breathing her in and reveling in the fact that Lydia Martin is in his arms and he's _not_ dying.

She pulls back to look at him, her cheeks flushed and that's when he realizes that she's crying. Lydia brushes the tears away, laughing a little.

"Sorry." Lydia dabs at her eyes.

"Hey," He reaches out and takes her face in his hands, thumbs sliding over her cheeks.

"Hey." She smiles weakly at him. Her eyes are all big and shiny and he's pretty sure he could kiss her right now. He could, now. She wouldn't feel obligated anymore. He's okay.

But he doesn't, because she cares about him and if the tumult of emotions inside of him is even _close_ to what she's feeling, it would be wrong and manipulative of him. But he wants to. God, does he want to.

Instead, he asks, "Dinner? I can order something once I've called my dad."

"Sure," she says softly, looking down at her hands. He pulls his hands back from her face and stands up. His head still hurts, but it's a minor pain, now that all the stress has lifted from his shoulders.

He dials his father and listens to the phone ring as Lydia looks up at him from the sofa and he's always been able to see through her, but right now, he can't quite make himself believe what he's seeing. Because he's pretty sure that Lydia Martin loves him, even if she doesn't know it.


	25. Chapter 25

"_**because I stay another hour or two."**_

They're lying side by side on her bed and she has her eyes closed and she should be trying to sleep, but in her head all she keeps thinking is that he's okay. He's okay. So she turns on her side and opens her eyes to look at him and finds him looking back.

"You're okay," she whispers, a smile curling up the corners of her mouth.

"I'm okay." And he's smiling too. They're lying there, smiling, and he's okay and before she can think about it, and worry about what it'll mean this time, she kisses him.

For a few moments she gets lost in his lips and breath and the feel of his skin under her fingertips and the hot flush of his body. And then he's saying, "Lyds."

She can't find the words to answer him, so she just blinks her eyes open and sees he's looking down at her with concern and confusion.

"Maybe we shouldn't."

"Why not?" And she knows why not, somewhere, but right now, she can't seem to access that part of her brain.  
>"Because... Are you sure you want to?"<p>

"Yes." The word bursts out so fast that she doesn't have any time to think about it, just answers.

"Are you _sure_?"

"Yes, Stiles! Do _you_ not want to?"

"What, no? God, no. Of course I want to."

"Then shut up." And she kisses him again, pulling him closer, letting the fire that's started in her chest eat her alive. And she's pulling and pushing and trying to move things along before she has a chance to think about how this might change things and how no one even knows they're friends, except Allison, and what's going to happen _after_, but he kisses lazily and murmurs, "Slow, Lyds," against her lips.

And she's always the one in control, but not now, because his lips trail all over her skin and he's in no hurry and she's not used to things like this. She doesn't do slow. But he keeps things slow as he tugs off articles of clothing and presses hot lips to her skin. And she's breathless at the way he keeps asking if what he's doing is alright with her and she just keeps breathing, "yes," because it's the only word that she can begin to think and no one's ever asked her that before.

And when he finally pushes into her, breath hitching, he does so slowly and his lips brush against her ear as he murmurs, "Are you okay?"

And she doesn't know this feeling, the one that's rising in her chest so intensely she thinks she's going to drown in it, but she knows she wants desperately to keep feeling it, so she nods against his neck and all she can seem to say is, "yes," and "Stiles." And still, he's slow, moving with purpose and gentleness and she's nowhere close to a virgin, but she's never done this before, never been like this with anyone.

She loses herself with his name on her lips and his breath fanning against her skin and it's only hours later, as she lies awake and he sleeps soundly, their limbs tangled together, that she realizes that there's a term for everything that's happened here between them. It's called making love. And that thought reverberates deep inside her and it is the most beautiful and terrifying thing she's ever felt.


	26. Chapter 26

"_**For crying out loud, settle down."**_

She wakes up smiling to herself and it has everything to do with the boy who's still sleeping next to her. She'd thought, as she was first kissing him last night, that as soon as she stopped, all the worries about real life would seep back in, but they seem to still be at bay because all she feels right now is happy.

She rolls over and kisses him on the cheek. "Stiles."

He scrunches up his nose and opens one eye. "Mmmmm?"

"We have school." She starts to stand up, but he tugs her back.

"Skip day?"

She rolls her eyes. "We can't. We have an English test. You only have a half day anyway, remember? Doctors orders." She turns and he lets her go, but she only gets one step away from the bed before he catches her hand in his and she turns around. He's sitting up and has scooted to the edge of the bed to reach her. He's grinning at her.

She's suddenly very aware that she's completely naked. "Can I help you?"

His eyes are all soft, like liquid honey. "Just give me a sec," he says.

"Stiles, I'm naked, get to the point."

"Lydia, you are literally the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." Oh, fuck it. She kisses him, heart soaring up and she feels him smile against her lips. He pulls her back down onto the bed and, well, maybe they have a little time, Lydia reasons. And they _do_ have a test, so maybe releasing some endorphins and relieving a little stress isn't such a bad idea.

Due to their morning distraction, she's almost late to school. Stiles _is_ late, since he'd run back to his house to shower and change clothes. She texts him that she told him so. He responds that it was worth it, which leaves her smiling and blushing in her drawing class, while Allison shoots her confused glances.

"Lydia, what's going on with you? Who are you texting?"

"No one." The response is automatic, but she immediately feels a little guilty. She and Stiles haven't discussed how they're going to handle this, whatever it is. It's definitely something that needs to happen, but she's kind of dreading it.

"Lydia, I'm not that stupid." Allison's face lights up. "Oh my God, did you get laid?"

How does Allison always seem to know that? It's like a freakish superpower. "Maybe."

Allison smirks. "New boy toy?"

"What!? No! Sti-" she catches herself. "He isn't like that."

"Oh. My. God." Allison is staring at her.

"What?"  
>"You just almost said "Stiles," didn't you?"<p>

Lydia curses the heat she can feel rising in her cheeks. "No! Allison, he's my _lab_ partner."

"Oh, please." Allison rolls her eyes. "Look, I know we didn't talk about it, but you _know_ I saw you two in the hallway."

"He was upset," Lydia defends herself. "He and Heather had been friends for years."

"And how did you even know that?"

"You said it yourself, we have to spend a ton of time together."

"Lydia." Allison's voice plainly says, cut the crap.

She sighs, fiercely. But she _wants_ to tell Allison. She's tired of putting on an act all the time. "Fine. Maybe it was Stiles."

Allison is grinning from ear to ear. "Hhhmm."

"_What_?"

"Nothing. It's just about time you went for a decent guy."

Lydia bites her lip. "We're not... I don't really know what we are, exactly. It kind of just happened and, you know, he's kind of been a secret."

"Why?"

"What do you _mean_ why? You know why."

"No, I really don't," Allison says.

"Because I have a reputation, Allison," Lydia growls. "And I spent a long time building it so I could get to the top and that would be throwing it all away. This is a small town. People talk. What people think matters."

Allison rolls her eyes. "Well, you better straighten things out fast, Lydia, because Stiles deserves someone who isn't embarrassed of him."

Lydia stares down at her hands, but Allison's hit the nail on the head. Stiles deserves a lot more than her, she's known that for ages. She's tired. She's tired of being Lydia Martin and she's tired of hiding Stiles and she's tired of this whole town. These thoughts follow her as she drifts through her next two classes.

She steps out into the hallway, turning towards Chem, and she catches sight of him down the hall. He's standing beside Scott's locker, chatting brightly, hands waving a bit spastically in the air. She can't not smile, seeing him there and something shifts inside her chest and she's made her decision.

She takes long, purposeful steps towards him. She's still a few feet away when he looks up and sees her coming. For a second, there's confusion. He even glances behind him, like she might be heading for someone else. She doesn't think; she doesn't stop.

She has to stand on her tiptoes, even in her heels, to kiss him, but she doesn't care. He inhales sharply in surprise as their lips collide, but he kisses her back, arms circling her and pulling her closer. And she hears Scott say, "Holy Shit." But she doesn't care, because kissing Stiles makes everything else unimportant.

Stiles pulls back, staring down at her in surprise. He glances around. "Lyds, people are staring."

"Good." And then she kisses him again.


	27. Chapter 27

"_**You know I can't be found with you."**_

If anyone had told him six months ago that he'd be taking Lydia to the prom, he would have laughed in their face and tried not to feel incredibly sad about the fact that she didn't even know his name. But now he's standing in her house, wearing the fancy suit-tux-_whatever_ thing that Lydia had picked out for him, and he wonders if the fact that he has _butterflies_ detracts from his masculinity.

The truth is, he doesn't really care, because he's taking Lydia Martin to the prom. As if summoned by his thoughts, she appears in the entryway and it's like she's absorbed all the air from the room. She's so beautiful. He can't help but notice she looks completely different from the last dance she'd went to, with Jackson on her arm. That night, she'd been decked out in a short pink dress with bright red lips. Tonight, she's chosen a long silver dress that dips dangerously low in the front and back, the rest of it floating around her. Her makeup is soft, soft eyes, soft lips, soft everything, which is _not_ how Lydia generally lets herself be seen, but he loves it. She looks so real and ethereal at the same time and he doesn't even care if that doesn't make sense.

"Hey," he says softly.

"Hey." She stops in front of him and they link hands automatically, fingers sliding between fingers.

"You look beautiful." He wonders if she can even begin to understand how much he means that. But then, it doesn't matter, because a small, shy smile is spreading across her lips and her cheeks are flushed pink and he realizes that what he said really _matters_ to her. He can't get over that, that what he says has the power to make her feel good. It's a power he plans to use as frequently as possible.

"Thanks."

He'd bought a corsage, even though when he'd brought it up, she'd rolled her eyes and called it unnecessary. But he could see through that, and he's so glad he ignored her stubborn determination to be jaded, because her smile only widens as he slides it on her wrist.

"You didn't _have_ to," she insists.

"I _wanted_ to," he retorts. She tries to suppress the smile this time and he doesn't know why she even attempts to fool him. He's always seen her.

"Ready to go?" he asks, and together they make their way out to his jeep. He would have rented a limo. He really would have, anything for Lydia, but she _had_ managed to talk him out of that one and he thinks that she really doesn't mind.

He's not at all surprised, though a tiny bit intimidated by how many heads Lydia turns when they enter the dance. He doesn't blame them. She's stunning. It leaves him wondering if it's actually possible for a person to exude light, because everything about her seems to be glowing, or maybe that's just how angels look, fallen or not.

Lydia tugs on his hand, pulling him away from his thoughts and he catches her eyes. He must be dreaming, because he's looked at her, looked into those eyes, countless times and he has never, ever, not _once_ seen her looking back without any pain. That's just Lydia. But right now, right this second, that hurt piece of her is gone. If he could keep her like this forever, he would.

She pulls him onto the dance floor and he goes, suddenly only dimly aware of the people around them or the stares that they attract. It's only been a couple of weeks and people aren't used to the idea of Lydia with a boy like him, but he doesn't care. They can stare and whisper and claim it doesn't make sense all they want. _He's_ not even sure it makes sense, but he's not going to question it. So he just pulls Lydia in to him and holds on and wonders if it's too soon to tell her he loves her.


	28. Chapter 28

"_**We get back to my house,"**_

She's at war with herself. The logical, jaded side of herself is _screaming_, absolutely bellowing, for her to pull away from where she's wrapped in his arms and rotating on the dance floor. Every moment she stays here, she's becoming more raw, more open, more _his_. It's terrifying.

"I'm going to get a drink," she whispers into his ear, pulling away from him and trying to get some distance from his eyes and his hands and the intensity of how he makes her feel. It turns out, as she heads for the drink table, that the distance doesn't help much, because she's not feeling any less emotional towards him. She only misses his eyes and his hands and the way he holds her.

She grabs a cup of punch and spots Allison sitting at a nearby table and makes her way over. She looks gorgeous, in a light lilac mermaid style dress that contrasts with her hair. Allison looks the way Lydia always imagined storybook princesses should look.

"Hey," Lydia sits down next to her friend.

Allison smiles that endearing smile, the one where her dimples stand out perfectly. "Hey."

"Why aren't you dancing?" Lydia asks, because Allison isn't the sort of girl to sit out.

"Oh, I don't know," Allison blushes slightly and Lydia follows her eye line to where a group of people stand. No way.

"Scott? You _like_ him?" She shouldn't be so surprised. Allison had said he was cute, but Lydia hadn't known that her friend even knew enough about Scott McCall to have any sort of feelings for him.

Allison blushes more intensely and doesn't meet her eyes. "I don't know."

Across the room, Scott is chatting with Isaac and Cora. Lydia supposes he's cute. Kind of like how a puppy is cute, or something.

"Ladies." Erica Reyes drops into the seat next to Allison. She's wearing a tight red dress that shows off a considerably large amount of her body. While Lydia and Erica have always run in the same social circles, they've never liked each other much. Lydia couldn't pinpoint exactly why, but she imagines that it has something to do with a sort of quiet rivalry. After all, there's only _one_ queen bee.

"You look nice," Allison tells her. Which she _does_, it just isn't something Lydia would say.

"Thank you." Erica turns her eyes to Lydia, an amused and predatory look in them. "So, you've gotten yourself a new boy toy, Lydia? I've got to hand it to you, I didn't notice how cute he was until you scooped him up." Erica studies her perfect nails and Lydia braces herself for whatever she's about to say.

"So, how long do you think you're going to keep this one? I don't mind sloppy seconds."

Hearing Stiles referred to as such makes Lydia's hands curl into fists, but she swallows the annoyance and plasters on a smile. "It's not like that, actually."

Erica raises an eyebrow. "Please. He's too sweet for you and you're too cold for him."

"You don't know anything about us!" Lydia hisses, standing up. She thinks about adding something else, but _she's _not even sure how to qualify what's between her and Stiles, so instead she turns on her heel and stalks away from the table. She feels a little bad about abandoning Allison with Erica, but those two actually get along okay. To make up for it, she makes sure to stop as she's passing Scott.

"You should ask Allison to dance."

Scott blushes furiously. "I... Uh... Does she want me to?"

"Yes," Lydia says, because Allison doesn't have to say anything for Lydia to read her.

She finds Stiles at the food table (she should have known), munching on a chocolate chip cookie. He catches her eyes and waves his half a cookie at her and she joins him.

"More dancing?" She's still fuming a bit from what Erica had said about them and she wants to dance with him and forget. But she doesn't forget. It spins around and around and around in her head until she wants to scream. She can't stop wondering if Stiles sees what Erica sees, if he thinks they won't last.

"Are you okay?" They've stopped moving, coming to a halt in the middle of the dance floor and Stiles is looking down at her with warm, concerned eyes. She doesn't really mean to say it. It's not what she'd opened her mouth to say. But it comes out anyway and it's _true_.

"I love you."

The surprise in his eyes only lasts for a brief moment and that causes her to come to a realization.

"You already knew."

He smiles softly, looking away from her. "I might have had an idea."

"I can't believe you knew." She'd expected to surprise him, but it's pretty clear the only thing that's shocked him is the timing, not the news. But then, when has she _ever_ been able to surprise Stiles? He knows her too well.

She presses her forehead to his shoulder. "Well, I don't care that you already knew. I love you." It feels so good to say, like releasing all these things that are pent up inside of her, just letting it be, letting it happen. She lets herself be in love with him.

His hands tighten slightly. "I love you, Lyds."

She lets him be in love with her too.


	29. Chapter 29

"_**your hands, my mouth,"**_

He's pretty sure they're one of those couples that everyone hates because they can't keep their hands off each other and they're always murmuring quietly, things no one else can hear. They're grossly in love. And he doesn't give a fuck if it bothers anyone else.

He's happy. He's really, really, happy and he thinks Lydia is too. There's still pain in her eyes, he thinks there always will be, but he catches it less and less these days and he counts those times as a victory.

And because of all this, he doesn't see it coming. They've been so happy. _Sickeningly_ happy, Scott would say, and sure, sometimes they get irritated with each other, but they don't _fight_. They never have. Except they're fighting now. Or... they're sitting in a fuming silence in his jeep as he drives them to school, post fighting.

It's stupid. They don't need to be fighting about something like this. He should just give in and do want she wants because it'll make her happy and they can deal with the results when it gets to that, but he doesn't. He's not even sure _why_ he doesn't. Probably because he's Stiles and stubborn is one of his strongest character traits; if it wasn't, he probably wouldn't be Lydia Martin's boyfriend right now.

But he could smooth this over. It's so stupid. One glance in Lydia's direction and he knows _she_ isn't going to do it. She's clenching her jaw so tight, it's a miracle she hasn't broken a tooth. This only causes his own annoyance and anger to rush back in. She's being ridiculous. This whole thing is ridiculous.

He spends the rest of the drive and the traipse to their locker trying to regain his cool. Someone needs to apologize and that's probably going to fall to him. If he leaves it up to Lydia, it could take days. The girl can hold a grudge like no other. So right as she's opening her locker, he leans up against the one next to it and takes a deep breath.

"I think we should talk about this."

Lydia looks at him warily. "Maybe after school."

"No, I think we should talk about it _now._ I don't want to spend the whole day feeling tense and irritable around each other."

"Gee," Lydia says, her face bright and sarcasm dripping off her words. "I wonder how we could have avoided _that_."

"You know I'm not always going to just fall to floor and agree with you, right?" Stiles asks, forgetting that he's supposed to be the calm one.

"Oh, you think _that's_ the problem, do you?"

"What do _you_ think the problem is?"

"I told you what I think the problem is!" Lydia's voice is rising. There's vulnerability there and if he were in just slightly a better mood, he would reach out and soothe the fear that he knows is pushing all this, but he's too frustrated and irritable to do what he normally would.

"And I told you why that doesn't make any sense!"

"I didn't ask you to _go_! I just want you to have the _possibility_! You're limiting yourself and you're limiting us!"

"No, I'm not!" Stiles doesn't know when he started waving his hands in the air, but that's never a good sign. The dark look in Lydia's eyes is _definitely_ not a good sign. She's not even bothering to lower her voice anymore and the people closest to them have turned to look. It must be a sight to see, the inseparable pair having their first real fight in front of the whole school. Fucking perfect.


	30. Chapter 30

"_**now I just stop myself around you."**_

She doesn't know how they got here, standing in the middle of the English hallway, screaming at each other. She and Stiles don't fight. They gripe at each other, they make sarcastic comments, sometimes one of them gets sullen, but they don't _fight_. But they're fighting now and, at this point, Lydia isn't really even sure what they're fighting about.

People are staring. A lot of people are staring.

"You're the one who said it was serious!" Lydia screams at him, frustration and anger and _fear_ coursing though her veins.

"Of course it's fucking serious!" Stiles waves his hands furiously. "You're making something out of _nothing_!"

"It's not _nothing_! Is that what _we_ are to you?!"

"Stop twisting everything around!" He yells. "I didn't spend the last nine years of my life pining after you to be accused of this!"

"Don't _do_ that! Don't you dare act like I _owe_ you an apology for all those years! I didn't even _know_ you! It's not like you said anything! It's not like I had a chance to want you back!"

"Maybe we shouldn't have gotten together in the first place!" Stiles snaps. "Maybe we shouldn't be together at all!"

Silence. It's like sound rushed out of the world with that sentence. Lydia can't breathe. It's like the air rushed out of the world with those words. Of everything he could have said, she can't believe he said that. She can't believe he even _thought_ that. If he's aiming to hurt her, he's done it. And this is why she never wanted to fall in love with Stiles Stilinski, because all it's taken is a few words from him to shatter her heart.

"Fine," she says quietly. The ice in her voice matches the cold that's sinking into her bones, not a chilled, tingling cold, but an aching, numb weight. "Fine, then. Let's not be together." She squares her shoulders, lifts her chin, and turns away from him.

"Wait, Lyds. I didn't mean that, I just-"

She spins back around. "No. You wanna break up? Fine, we're broken up. Problem solved." And then she turns and walks away from him and he yells "Lydia!" after her, but she doesn't look back at him, she doesn't look back at all, not even when she reaches the front doors and stomps right through.

"Lydia!" Allison catches up to her just as she gets to her car. "What's going on?"

She considers not answering, but she's having a hard time breathing and she could probably use a friend. She unlocks her car.

"Get in. We'll talk on the way."

"Where are we going?" Allison asks as she slips into the passenger seat.

"Somewhere with alcohol."

Allison doesn't ask again until they're three blocks from school. "Lydia, what happened with Stiles?"

His name hurts. "He broke up with me."

"He didn't _mean_ to, everyone can see that."

"Well, he did it." Lydia can still hear his words ringing in her head and she doesn't know if she'll ever get them out. How could he ever think they were a mistake?

"Why were you fighting?"

"It was stupid."

Allison looks at her expectantly.

"I was just saying he should apply to some Ivy's with me because he's so smart and he never sees it and he said he can't go far from here and I don't want to leave him and he says long distance can work and it turned into this huge argument about what we're gonna do after graduation and how seriously we take this relationship and everything kind of went to hell."

"So, basically, what you're telling me is that you two had a fight about how you're both super in love with each other and now you're broken up?"

"It's more complicated than that."

"Not really," Allison says firmly.

"Yes it-"

"-No. He loves you. No one who has _ever_ seen you two together could possibly doubt that. And he's determined that, no matter what, no matter where you two go to school, that he's gonna be with you. And you love him. And you want him to go where you go. You want to be together. You two are disgustingly in love. And you're both being idiots."

Lydia presses her lips into a firm line. It hadn't felt so much like he loved her when he'd said maybe they shouldn't be together. That's not something you should say if you're in love.

She bangs on the back door at Derek's until he drags it open, looking annoyed. He knows Lydia, who's been a fixture and a _fantastic_ addition to the crime solving team, pretty well by now, but she doesn't come here without Stiles.

"_What_?" he asks.

"I need a drink." She pushes past him into the building, navigating the halls until she ends up at the bar with Allison on her heels. Derek follows more slowly, arms crossed, frown on his face.

"The bar is _closed_," he says, as Lydia reaches over the counter and snags a bottle of Jäger and a shot glass, ignoring him entirely.

"Do you want any?" she asks Allison, who shakes her head. Lydia pours a shot.

"Alcohol isn't free, you know," Derek snaps. "And you're underage."

Lydia ignores him, swallowing the shot and pouring a second.

"Lydia!" Derek's voice is becoming increasingly annoyed.

Allison lays a hand on Derek's arm. "Stiles kinda broke up with her."

"He did what?" The surprise on Derek's face might be funny if Allison's words didn't hurt so much. Lydia tries to ignore them and focus on her alcohol.

"Well, he didn't exactly _mean_ to. They were arguing and it just kind of happened," Allison explains.

Lydia's phone is ringing. She checks it. Stiles. She drops it on the bar, ignoring it. She sees Allison roll her eyes and snatch up the phone.

"Don't you dare answer that!" Lydia hisses, but it's too late.

"Hello?" Allison says. She seems unaffected by Lydia's death glare. "Yes. You're an idiot, you know." Allison pauses for a moment and Lydia appreciates the fact that she called him an idiot.

"I _know_ that, Stiles," Allison says plainly. "That's a stupid question. Of course she's not."

"I'm not _what_?" Lydia asks, wishing she could hear the conversation, but Allison waves her away.

"We're at Derek's-"

"-Don't _tell_ him that!" but it's too late, so Lydia resigns herself and downs another shot. She doesn't want to see Stiles. Even thinking about Stiles hurts, so she won't think about him either.

This becomes infinitely more difficult when he storms into the bar fifteen minutes later, ignoring the way Derek throws his hands in the air and yells, "We're _closed_!" Infinitely harder, yes, but not altogether impossible. She squeezes her eyes closed and tightens her grip on the bottle of Jäger. She'd abandoned the shot glass altogether awhile ago. She's not sure how long. Time doesn't seem to be moving at its normal speed.

"Lydia." He sits down next to her. She can tell because the air around her feels heavier and she can just barely smell his aftershave, but she's still got her eyes closed and her head is spinning and she's not going to look at him.

"Lyds, come on," His voice is a little less calm, a little more desperate.

"Go away, Stiles."

"No."

"Yes!" It's not a good comeback. Even in her inebriated state, she knows this.

"Lyds, I'm sorry." He really does sound it. She almost peeks an eye open to look at him, but if she looks at him it'll hurt and probably make her cry and she _will not_ cry about him in front of him. She has _some_ dignity left.

"You should go. You broke up with me, remember?"

"I _didn't_!"

"Yes you did!"

"I didn't mean it! I was just frustrated and angry and I-"

"-And you wanted to hurt me." She opens her eyes because it turns out not looking at him isn't helping the pain in her chest much. "Well, congratu-fucking-lations."

"I'm _sorry_," he repeats. "I don't know how to fix it, Lyds."

"Maybe you can't," she snaps. She wonders if it's possible to break someone's sternum with words. That's what it feels like he's done to her.

"Lyds, I _love _you. And you love me and it was a stupid fight and I'm sorry. Look, you're right. I can apply and we can deal with the outcome later." His hand slides over hers and she bites her lip and tries to decide if she's going to let him hold it. Part of her wants to pull it away, but it feels so good, so warm and solid and Stiles.

"I can't handle you doing stuff like that," she admits.

"Like what?"

"_Saying_ the things that you said, telling me we were a mistake to hurt me! Because that's why I never dated boys I might love to begin with, because they hurt you when they're angry, really hurt you, not stupid bruises or mean words, but something deeper! And I _trust_ you, or I did, and you threw what you knew would hurt me in my face!"

"I- I can't-" Stiles stutters out. "Lyds, please look at me."

She doesn't.

"_Please_."

She gives in, meeting his eyes, which are all stormy and full of pain. She wonders if their eyes are reflections of each other.

"I can't promise that I won't make stupid mistakes," he says softly. "I wish I could, I want to, but I can't. I don't know. Maybe I will. But Lyds, I know you know that I love you, and I would never, ever actually want to hurt you and I am _so_ sorry that I did and please, please don't leave me for this."

She knows he's had her from the moment she gave in and looked in his eyes. But it scares her. It scares her how much her happiness is wrapped up in him and it scares her how easily she's going to fold to his words and it scares her that this could be her life, loving Stiles and getting hurt. But she nods ever so slightly and he puts his arms around her and presses a kiss into the side of her head.

"It scares me, what we have," she admits, quietly.

"I know." And when he says that she thinks about the way he looks straight into her soul and she thinks he probably really does.


	31. Chapter 31

"_**A soft sound, to the way that she wears her hair down."**_

He knows it's crazy. They're just kids. Hell, they'd only been together four months. So he knows it's a crazy thing to do when he buys the ring. He's not planning on proposing. Not anytime soon, anyway. He hadn't sat around and thought about it. It's not like he's ready to get married. Fuck, they've got a whole year of high school left. But he'd been walking down the street and spotted the ring in the window of an antique store and he'd just stopped walking.

He'd stood there, staring at it, telling himself it was crazy, but he'd bought it anyway. And now, he's had it sitting in a box in his sock drawer for two more months and their six month anniversary is here and he's got the ring in his _pocket_, which is stupid, because he's not going to propose. He's _seventeen_. But it's in his pocket anyway.

He just wants to know what it's like. He's going to make a fancy dinner and she's going to come over to his house and sit across from him and he's going to have this weight in his pocket and he's going to know what it feels like, knowing that he _could_ propose to her. But he won't.

God, it's too fucking crazy. Lydia Martin makes him do crazy things. Loving Lydia is like standing in a field in the middle of a thunderstorm, dangerous and scary and fucking mental, but also exhilarating and beautiful and absolutely awesome. Still, marriage is another thing altogether and he knows they aren't even close to ready for that. But he has a ring in his pocket.

She arrives at his house in a flurry, letting herself in with the key he'd given her, kicking off her shoes, dumping her things on the sofa, and looking generally more flustered than Lydia tends to. She doesn't even notice the fact that he's dressed especially nicely, or that he'd bothered to a put table cloth on the table, or that there are candles, or that he's made Thai food, until she's halfway through a complaint about her math teacher.

"Oh." She trails off halfway through her sentence, staring at the table, then at Stiles.

He almost laughs at the surprise on her face. "Happy anniversary."

Watching all her walls fall down and everything about her soften is never, ever going to get old for him. She's got her secret smile pulling at her lips, the one she never seems to want out because it gives away just how much she's feeling and her cheeks heat up and God, he loves having this sort of impact on her.

It's not really in the plan for her to kiss him so intensely that they end up in his bedroom, rather than at the table, but he's pretty sure he's okay with it. Food can wait. He and Lydia are in one of their bedrooms on a very frequent basis, but this is one of those rare times where she's not pushing for dominance, not that he generally minds that. He's totally about the Lydia that likes to rip his clothes off (though that hasn't been great for his wardrobe) and marks his skin and lets him mark hers (the _only_ way she should ever be bruised, in his opinion, is with his mouth). That version of Lydia likes to be on top and he's definitely, definitely, okay with that.

But right now, the Lydia that she's letting out is the one that blushes and holds him with soft hands and breathes his name, rather than screams it. This is the Lydia that lets him make love to her and she's less common and absolutely incredible. He knows she loves him when she relinquishes her tightly held control, because she doesn't do that for _anyone_.

They don't end up leaving his bed until they're both so hungry that their stomachs feel hollow. Lydia gets out of bed first, nearly tripping on his pants, and giving him a stern look.

"Why are these on my side of the bed?"

"Don't ask me. _You_ took them off." There's no bite to either of their voices, too lazy and in love to even pretend to argue. Lydia leans over to pick them up, then freezes. Stiles strains his neck to see what's caught her attention. His heart drops down into his stomach. She's got the ring pressed between her fingers as she stands up to look at him with wide eyes.

This is _not_ something he'd ever imagined, Lydia Martin standing naked in his bedroom, holding a ring he'd bought for her, but hadn't intended on using for a long, long time.

"Stiles?"

"It's not- not, you know, I just wanted to know what it was like?" His words are a mess and probably explain nothing and he's _panicking_.

"Is this an _engagement _ring?"

"_Technically_, but-"

"-why do you have an _engagement ring_ in your pocket?"

"I just, I mean, I didn't _mean_ to, exactly. I sort of couldn't help myself, but I wasn't-"

"-Were you going to propose tonight?" Lydia sinks onto the bed next to him and she's looking at him like he's sprouted an extra head and he really can't blame her.

"No."

"Then _why_?"

"It was sort of an accident," he says, hoping she won't run away from him for this. "I just saw it in a window and it made me think of you and so I bought it, which I probably shouldn't have done, but I did. And it's just been sitting around and then today I was just wondering what it would be like, you know, to have it where I could ask you to marry me if I wanted, but I wasn't actually _going to_, because I'm not stupid. I mean, I get it. We're in high school and we haven't been together for that long and yeah, I really, really, like the idea of marrying you one day, but we have college and stuff to do first and God, I know it was crazy, Lyds. I never thought you'd see it." He knows he's been rambling at her and if she weren't so adept at picking out his words, he wouldn't expect her to follow any of it.

She's turning the ring over in her hands, watching the light catch on it and she's not even looking at him. He wishes she would look at him. He wishes she would say something. Anything.

"Lyds?" he prompts.

She looks at him with soft eyes and presses he ring into his hand. She still doesn't say anything. He takes it from her, wondering if he's ruined everything. But then she smiles, just a small, soft smile, and presses a kiss into his cheek.

"One day," she whispers, then she stands up, snagging one of his t-shirts from the desk and throwing it over head and walking towards his bedroom door. He watches her go, head spinning and heart beating way too fast. _One day_.

He follows her downstairs and they heat up leftovers and he makes stupid jokes and she laughs and the whole time he's just thinking about the fact that she'd said, _one day, _like there's not doubt in her mind that they'll get there.

_One day_.

He prays to every higher power he can think of that they'll get to have it.

**Note: Well, that's it. I feel the need to explain that I originally intended this story to be a oneshot with a few breaks that spanned about 7 or 8 months of time. Things got a little out of hand, I guess, and here we are now.**

**I hope everyone enjoyed reading it. I did my best to accurately depict how I feel Stiles and Lydia's relationship might have gone if none of the supernatural stuff in Beacon Hills ever happened. To me, Stiles and Lydia are a pair that take forever to really come together, but once they do, it's fast and intense. Speaking to this, I'd just like to say to anyone reading, just because Stiles and Lydia have sex literally as soon as they get together (and they aren't even officially together) please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction and they're decisions aren't always the best. This is not a model I would actually recommend following. **

**To clarify, this story begins with the start of the year in January (I'm making the artistic choice that Beacon Hills High isn't on block scheduling, thus these are the same classes they've had the whole first half of the school year. This is why Stiles has an established seat in Chem class and Lydia is used to working with Jackson.)**

**The story ends in November of that year. Stiles and Lydia became a couple in mid to late April, so it basically took them 3 to 4 months from officially meeting to becoming a couple. Their fight in the hall is right before the end of the school year and then there's a time jump to their 6 month anniversary about five months later. Honestly, I never had lacrosse at my school and I don't know if it's a spring sport or not, but the show seems pretty confused about this, so I guess I have a right to be too. **

**Thanks everybody for sticking with me and reading this fic! I absolutely adore Stiles and Lydia and plan on writing more of them. They've been my favorite relationship to write so far. **

**Music: The song that the quotes are from is Settle Down by The 1975**

**For anyone reading my Arya/Gendry fic, I apologize SO much for how long it's taking me. I've decided that once I finish Arya/Gendry and Naomi/Cook that I'm not posting anything that I don't have a complete rough draft of. Arya/Gendry and Naomi/Cook are both planned to the end, but not completely written and I've discovered that, since writing is a creative outlet for me and just something that I do for fun, I don't have the discipline to release regular updates unless I already have a rough draft and I just need to edit before releasing chapters. Again, so sorry. Those fics haven't been abandoned, but they are taking me quite a while.**


End file.
